Damaged
by SMchick
Summary: This is mainly an invented back story for Sam. You could call it AU, except we know next to nothing about Sam in canon. It starts with them together and then jumps to Sam coping after Andy leaves for most of the story. Chapter 1 is a mild M (involves some racy foreplay), so if you're too young or skip stories with sexual content, start with Ch2. You'll be able to follow things OK.
1. Chapter 1: Contact High

**Author's Note: **This story is going to start off light and fun and then fairly quickly take a time jump to after the break-up/taskforce departure. It's not exactly AU, but I'm altering the order of when some of the season 3 events occurred. (e.g., assume for this chapter that Noelle has given Gail her training, but they won't actually do the sting for a few more days) But mainly there's going to be a whole lot of invented Swarek back story in this fic.

I changed the rating for the story from M to T, but this first chapter is still a mild M for quirky/kinky foreplay and indirect references to marijuana use. The usual disclaimer applies: _I have no rights to Rookie Blue or any of the fantastic characters the real talent created._

**Chapter 1: Contact High**

"What?" Sam asked.

"I didn't say anything," Andy replied.

"You keep shooting me these not so subtle looks. What's on your mind, McNally?"

"Nothing. I'm just kind of surprised you've hung in this long without complaining is all," Andy shrugged.

"_**I **_am not the one who whines when you rope me into doing something," Sam replied giving her a pointed look.

"Yeah, that's because you just don't _do_ anything you don't want to do," Andy shot back, rolling her eyes.

"I'm baking cupcakes with you for this so-called house warming, aren't I?" Sam replied dryly.

"Yeah, but you only agreed because you're still kind of high from that party we busted and I promised you could have anything I messed up. Who knew you were such a mellow stoner?" Andy said with a smirk.

"Well, if I'm mellow, you're paranoid. And speaking of rewards, you haven't followed through yet," Sam said grabbing one of the cupcakes.

"Put that back," Andy objected. "That's not ruined. You can have the cake or lick the frosting bowl."

"What? You're trying to give me the cake you set on fire? No way," Sam insisted.

"Sam, c'mon," Andy said making a grab for the cupcake he'd snagged. "If you eat that right now, you'll end up eating half of them."

"You want this?" Sam teased, pretending to give it to her before pulling it just out of her reach a couple times.

"Sam, knock it off," Andy giggled, lunging more determinedly for it.

But Sam was too quick for her, especially since all the second-hand pot they'd inhaled from that high school party they had busted with seemingly endless bongs fired up was still affecting her balance pretty significantly. (By the time they had sorted everything out at the house, they both had such loopy grins on their faces, Frank sent them both home early with a stern lecture to shower so they wouldn't leave the barn smelling like they just walked off the set of a Judd Apatow movie.) Sam dodged her reach and tweaked her nose with the cupcake, leaving a big blob of frosting on her nose.

"Oh look, it _is_ ruined. Toldja you got more buzzed than me," Sam goaded her before peeling the paper wrapper and taking a big bite of the cupcake. "And for your information, I don't get uncontrollable munchies from a breathing in a little bit teenagers' secondhand weed," Sam insisted smugly.

"OK, Mr. Totally Sober," Andy mocked while wiping the frosting off her nose. "You want to play around and bend the rules? Fine. You can have that and forfeit getting to lick the frosting bowl. That licking? It's all me now, buddy," Andy declared, reaching for the big bowl and starting to dance with it to the Katy Perry song her play list was currently thumping through the sound system he'd given her as a house warming gift a week ago. (He regretted that already since his old iPod didn't fit the adapter.)

Sam looked at her with a lopsided dimpled grin. "McNally, if that's your idea of retaliation, you might want to rethink your idea of what's a 'punishment' and what's a reward."

Andy blushed and rolled her eyes at him, muttering, "Horny as well as mellow, I guess."

Sam shrugged and tried to play it off with a casual, "You started it." But Andy could tell something had grabbed a hold of his imagination and wouldn't let go. He had gotten the look on his face Andy had finally figured out meant he had some completely perverted thought running through his head. So far, she'd never had the guts to push him to spill what he was thinking when she noticed it. But tonight she was feeling a little extra boldness and she was determined to find out what it was.

Andy sidled over closer to him and looked up under her lashes. "Well then, before I either punish or reward your bad behavior, I wanna know what's running through your head right now." She dipped her index finger in the bowl and got a generous blob of the cream cheese frosting on her finger and brought it halfway to her lips before pausing with a brow raised expectantly.

Sam actually choked on the last bite of cupcake and laughed nervously. His eyes had flickered to her chest as she walked over in way he usually never let her see, and now he pointedly looked at her finger and tried to brush her question off, "Looks like you have a pretty good idea what I'm thinking already."

Andy narrowed her eyes. That's what she had thought at first, but Sam was acting too weird and flustered about this for that to be it. His eyes kept darting around looking over at the stereo and now landing anywhere but anywhere in the vicinity of her cleavage.

"I don't' think so. C'mon, tell me," Andy coaxed.

"There's nothing to tell, McNally, you're the one who's imagining things," Sam claimed weakly.

"Right. That was totally convincing," Andy scoffed.

"Look, McNally, it was just a stupid image. You really don't want to hear about every random perverted thing that floats in and out of my head," Sam deflected.

"Why not? If you're thinking something about me, why can't I know what it is? I mean, unless you _weren't _thinking about me. Ya know, then I guess I don't' really want to know," Andy poured on her best babbling routine, hoping he'd buy that she really might be worried about it.

Sam snorted impatiently, "Of course it's about you. Who else do you think would be on my mind?"

"Aha! So you were thinking perverted thoughts about me. C'mon. Spill it," Andy pounced.

"It's nothing, OK. I just….," he trailed off, looking over at the stereo again.

"Wait, does it have to do with the song?" Andy asked.

"Sort of," Sam hedged. "Look, can we just drop this? I'll _show_ you a better way to spend the rest of the evening," Sam said taking a step closer.

Andy stepped back though. "Un-uh. Not this time. I want to actually hear about one of your kinks for once. Just tell me," Andy insisted.

Sam let out a frustrated sigh, "You're making too big a thing out of this, he muttered.

"Me?" she laughed. "You're the one who acts like anything slightly out of the box is going offend me or something."

"It's not that. It's just…McNally, your idea of escort names was Disney princesses," he muttered.

Andy rolled her eyes and muttered, "Thanks, Noelle." She eyed Sam curiously, "What does that even mean, Sam? You think I'm too G-rated about sex?" she asked incredulously.

"NO! No, see, I knew you would take that they wrong way. I told you the first night we were together you didn't strike me as the shy type. Do you really think I don't find our sex life adventurous enough?" Sam shot back.

"Well, OK, I guess not. But…I don't know. Sam, it's just sometimes you get a look on your face and then it seems like you're, I don't know. Holding back or something," she shrugged.

"Andy, every guy censors some things…" Sam started.

Andy raised a hand, "No, no. I know that. I'm not asking you to tell me _everything_. I just thought we were to the point you would tell me this once." She shrugged, "It's OK. It's not that big a deal if you don't want to. But you never know if I might be up for something until you run it by me, you know."

"I know that. Look, Andy, this wasn't even like that. It wasn't something you would actually do or anything." Andy raised a brow, "Well, I suppose we _could_, but that's not what the thought was about."

When Andy just continued to stare expectantly, Sam groaned and looked up at the ceiling. "Alright, fine. But just.. It was just a stupid image that floated into my head, OK? It wasn't anything I was planning to have a whole conversation about."

"OK," she nodded.

"Well, it's just that bubble gum pop song 'California Gurls' by Katy what's-her-name came on, and I'm standing here surrounded by cupcakes, and you were dancing around to her song, and…I just…kept seeing her…" he made a circular gesture in front of his chest, "and you with…" he pointed back and forth between them.

And launched into a giggle fit. "Oh my God. Are you talking about cupcake boobs?" Andy doubled over laughing when Sam just stood there before coughing out an awkward "Yeah," around a sheepish grin.

"Sam, why were you even making such a big deal about telling me _that_?" Andy asked, trying to tame her giggles.

"Uh, maybe because you're laughing your ass off right now?" but he was grinning back at her.

She straightened up and wiped the tears from her eyes from laughing so hard, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just didn't expect that you'd remember the video for this song is all. Though I probably shouldn't be surprised you remember cupcake boobs. I guess Traci is right, it really is all about the boobs with men."

Sam snorted, "Whatever. I can't believe you're bringing up that little girls' night debate again. You just want to hear me say you're the total package again," he smirked.

"Maaaybe. Anyway, wanna try it?" she said waggling her brows at him.

"Shut up." Sam huffed affectionately.

"Why not?" Andy asked picking up the cake decorating tube. "There's probably enough left in here."

"I think you're selling yourself short, McNally," Sam smirked.

"Ha! Funny," she replied, before looking him directly in the eye again before holding the tube out to him.

"What, you're really serious?" Sam asked in shock.

Andy shrugged. "Why not? We don't have to go in early tomorrow. There will be plenty of time to clean up any mess before we have to leave." She stared him down for a long few moments before deliberately setting the bowl aside to shed her t-shirt and throw it across the room. Her bra soon joined it. She picked up the frosting tube and walked slowly to where he was standing frozen, jaw still very much dropped in shock.

"Where's your sense of adventure, Swarek? Isn't this the kind of thing new couples are supposed to be free to do? You're the one who said acting like teenagers is such a great thing. Or are you still all talk-or in your case not even talk unless I drag it out of you-and no action?" Andy challenged. The song had switched over to 'Teen Aged Dream' a while ago and Andy started singing along.

_I'ma get your heart racing in my skin-tight jeans _

_Be your teenage dream tonight _

_Let you put your hands on me in my skin-tight jeans _

_Be your teenage dream tonight_

Sam chuckled, "You're trouble when you're a little baked, you know that? It's a good thing you're a cop who can't get high for real. Just remember that this was your idea, alright?" he added.

"Sure thing, officer," she smirked back, dancing up to him to plant a quick a kiss on his lips before dancing away before turning and lying down on the kitchen floor and stretching her arms over her head. "Your canvas awaits. Let's see what you can do." When he still hesitated and hung back, she added," C'mon. Play along and I'll make worth your while later."

Sam shook his head at her, but he finally pushed himself off the counter he'd been leaning against and walked over to sit down next to her. "Yeah, gonna melt my popsicle or something?" he smirked.

"Or something," she nodded and winked.

Sam lifted the frosting tube, but then stopped. "OK, I can't do this while you're watching me with that big, half-stoned grin on your face."

She slapped his arm, "Just stop stalling already."

"I'm serious. All I keep thinking is that this is going to pop in my head at the wrong time tomorrow and I'm gonna screw up something simple like drawing my gun or cuffing a perp."

"You're not really going to wuss out on this now are you?" She frowned.

"No, just…" he sighed impatiently. "Look, let's try this," he said moving around behind her and leaning against the refrigerator. "Rest your head on my leg and let me do it from this angle. "And close your eyes while I do this."

"Really?"

"What, I want to surprise you. Plus, I have to figure out how to do this, OK?"

"Oh, God. Fine. Whatever, Michelangelo." Sam just raised his eyebrow until she gave in, settle back between his legs and closed her eyes.

But to his credit, after a few false starts and squeals from her about the frosting being cold or tickling her, he did actually give it a real effort. In fact, he ended up taking it so seriously she finally couldn't stand it anymore and had to get a look at the progress. To her surprise, rather than being a complete mess, it looked just as perfect as the "frosting" in the video or a giant version of the fanciest cupcakes at her favorite bakery. And Sam had the strangest look on his face. He seemed to be simultaneously intensely focused on what he was doing and off a million miles away. There was no more of the light goofiness of their silly foreplay, at least not until he noticed her eying him curiously.

Then he snapped out of whatever trance he was in and finished with a few more swirling flourishes. "Don't move. I just have need to grab a couple finishing touches." He eased himself out from under her head before jumping up to grab a jar of maraschino cherries and some of the sprinkles she had been using earlier. "Might as well make it over the top while we're at it," he grinned.

This time he plopped down in front of her, sliding his legs under hers and grabbing her under her knees to pull her closer. She carefully propped herself up slightly on her elbows, not sure if this frosting would actually stick or start sliding off if she got too vertical. Judging by Sam's grin, she looked pretty ridiculous, but she wasn't quite ready to give up the silliness now that he finally seemed to have caught her goofy mood.

Sam put the finishing touches of sprinkles and followed up by adding the cherries, "Congratulations, McNally, you've achieved your fantasy of becoming a pop princess and walking pastry," he pronounced himself finished with a wide, dimpled smile.

"Hey, this was _your_ fantasy. I just stepped up and let you make it come true," she objected with a mock pout.

"Yes, you're right. This monstrosity was all me. But for the record, a stray thought isn't exactly the same thing as a fantasy." He leaned in closer before continuing more softly, "You do look delicious, though, and I was promised this human cake decorating trick would be worth my while," he reminded her, throwing in a low, drawled, "McNally," just to see the goose bumps he knew that tone always caused.

"Oh it's going to be worth your while…," she purred back. "but first bring me a mirror and the Polaroid camera from my nightstand," she added bossily.

Sam's jaw dropped. "_That's_ what you use that hipster retro camera for? Kinky photos?"

Andy shrugged. "Never actually used it before, no. But Gail convinced me it's better than trusting boyfriends with anything digital, right? I've heard about all those ex-girlfriend porn sites."

Sam just shook his head. "Is that what you guys talk about on your girls' nights? You play Carrie to Peck's Samantha?" he mocked.

"You do realize you're admitting you know the Sex and the City characters here, right?" Andy pointed out.

Sam shrugged, "Can't really avoid it after a few months on the couch with your taste in reruns controlling the remote. I could probably tell you more than I ever wanted to know about Grey's Anatomy too."

"Shut up. We take turns with the remote. I could tell you more than I care to about Man vs. Food, Dangerous Catch, and History Channel documentaries. So we're even, pal."

"Fair enough, McNally," Sam agreed.

"So. Mirror? Camera? I've got this sticky stuff all over me, I wanna see just how silly this looks," Andy prompted.

"I'm at your beck and call, Bossypants," he said dryly, but got up to oblige her anyway. He turned back when he was just out of reach and added, "You know, if you wanted me to start calling you 'sugar tits' all you had to do was ask," before ducking out of the room.

"Ugh, Sam! You better run. I can't even believe you said that. Don't ever say it again. Gross," she said wrinkling her nose in disgust. Sam just laughed, unconcerned.

Walking back in with the requested items, he said, "Hey, if the shoe fits…"

"Whatever. Just…" she motioned impatiently for the mirror, "shut up and hand it over already. And try not to say anything else like that or I'll take back my decision to let you lick the frosting after all."

"Right. Stop making empty threats and take a look," he nodded, completely unmoved by her bluff. "As if that wasn't the whole reason you wanted to do this little exercise in the first place," he added.

"Tsk, such a cocky guy, Swarek," Andy said without making any real effort to deny it as she accepted the mirror. She dissolved into giggles at her first good look at his handiwork, and the night evolved from unrepentantly childish mugging with the camera on both their parts into the hottest night of sex they'd had since they had been back together after their suspensions.

**AN**: …and you have to supply the rest of the post-foreplay action in your own fervid little imaginations. Sorry gang.


	2. Chapter 2: Playdough Past

**Author's Note: **This is the pillow talk on the same night. It's mostly revealing a bit of my completely made up back story for Sam. Apparently, all it takes is second-hand pot, frosting boobs, and some mind blowing sex to get him to open up a little. ;) Brace yourself for a switch in tone as this moves on to more serious topics.

**Chapter 2: Playdough Past**

"Sam…" Andy started before trailing off.

"Hmm," Sam mumbled absently as he continued to trace random patterns over her back.

Andy shifted her head on his chest enough so she could get at least a partial view of his face before continuing, "When you said you were a good cook, I had no idea you meant pastry chef level skills. Where did you learn to do that?"

"I told you my mom used to have a catering business," Sam replied absently.

"And what, you picked that up from watching her?" Andy asked, puzzled.

"Not exactly. But…" he glanced down at her," it's kind of a long story."

"I've got time," Andy tried to keep her tone casual, but she really hoped he'd say more. To her surprise, he nodded, pausing to look up at the ceiling before continuing.

"Uh, well, her catering business was actually something she did before I was old enough to remember. Apparently, it was pretty successful. She had plenty of prominent clients and a very good reputation among them. But then when my Dad went to prison for money laundering for the Irish mob, the government seized everything. They took the house, savings, everything of value. For a master financial criminal, my Dad didn't manage to have anything hidden away. No foreign bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, no secret criminal safety funds whatsoever. We were basically penniless other than a few thousand dollars for my mom to start over and the clothes on our backs. It all happened before I was old enough to even have a memory of that house or the suburb where we'd lived. I only knew the run down working class neighborhood where we ended up.

All Mom's clients dropped her. They just didn't want the taint of money laundering around them, I guess. The one most loyal client who held out the longest before dropping her at least got her in as a supplier to several high end bakeries. One of Mom's specialties was gourmet cupcakes-she was one of the first to make them trendy again I guess-and people were still happy to be able to buy those as long as they didn't have to have direct contact with her. Anyway, between that and running a small daycare in our cheap little apartment, she was able to support us. Barely.

But my mom…she had M.S. It wasn't too bad until the stress of dealing with seeing Sarah fall apart after her attack just finally wore her down. She started getting attacks much more often and lost the fine motor control of her hands she needed to continue selling to enough bakeries to keep us afloat. I found out later she'd even stopped seeing a doctor when we moved and kept her condition secret for fear that Child Protective Services would take us away from her if anyone knew. I'd always thought she told us not to talk about it to anyone out of pride. She always hated any kind of pity or being treated like a 'prison widow.'

My mother, to her dying day, clung to the belief that my father was innocent and one day there would be enough proof to push through a successful appeal and clear his name. She had this way of projecting such certainty that it made people want to believe it was more than just wishful thinking. She had me convinced to until I was about 10. I even had big plans to find some way to get through college and law school and prove it myself," he paused with a self-deprecating twitch of his lips.

"What changed your mind and made you believe she was wrong?" Andy asked softly.

"I let my father in on my big plan during one of our visits. He told me himself that she was just blinded by love and loyalty and refused to accept that he could do it. He made me promise not to waste my life of some fantasy quest to free him. Gave me a copy of Moby Dick and told me when I was old enough to understand the book I'd know not to try to be a hero chasing white whales or slaying dragons. Told me to keep my feet on the ground, become a cop, and chase down run-of-the-mill violent guys that prey on girls like Sarah and the criminal rings that generate the mountains of cash that tempt weak men like himself. Told me not to tell anyone about that conversation. To just be thankful I had a mother with that much faith and love and let her keep believing what she needed to. But he said that as I grew up I needed to learn to question things and know that people aren't always what they seem. To try to be like her without being blind to the fact that most people are more like him. Sometimes there's still a part of me that wishes the world was the way she saw it, that he wasn't guilty and I could've become the crusading Atticus Finch who proved it," he admitted quietly.

Andy paused the hand she'd been running over his chest and reached over to give his free hand an encouraging squeeze. He met her eyes for the first time since he'd begun, "You remind me of the best parts of her sometimes. You have the same ability to light up a room no matter how many times life has knocked you down. But you also make me afraid that you'll be prone to the same sort of blind spots. Except when some con plays you, you're going to lose your life not just be sentenced to a life you don't deserve."

He held her eyes while time seemed to stand still. Andy lost the ability to breathe, let alone even attempt to form coherent words for any kind of response. She knew she should say something, but she was utterly incapable of landing on anything, or even easing the giant lump that had a vice grip on her throat. This thing quivering between them had so many nuances and layers, she couldn't even begin to make sense of them. But the scope of the field of emotional landmines they were holding hands trying to navigate together was finally beginning to dawn on her.

Sam broke the moment, returning his gaze to the point on the ceiling he'd been fixated on as he . "Anyway, by the time Mom's health starting really slipping Sarah was in no shape to help. It was a couple years after her attack, but she was still barely functioning back then. So I decided I would learn how to take up the slack in the bakery business. My first attempt was such a disaster, my mom wouldn't even trust me with another expensive batch of ingredients to try again."

Sam paused to chuckle, "So I swiped some Playdough from the daycare center attached to my middle school and practiced with that, believe it or not. I had to stay up half the night for a week straight trying over and over again before I got coordinated enough to copy old publicity photos of my mom's most popular offerings. But I finally got the hang of it well enough to show her and convince her to let me try again with the real thing. After that, I secretly took over for her, doing everything after school. We told people that it was Sarah who helped out and found it therapeutic so I wouldn't get hassled by the local street kids who back in those days would have beaten the crap out of any kid in the neighborhood doing "girl stuff" like that. We managed to stay together and keep going for quite a while like that. But…"

Andy squeezed his hand again, encouraging him to continue. That lump in her throat somehow doubling in size at the image of Sam as a kid sitting in his room doggedly using Playdough to try to learn some grown-up skill of his mother's that probably seemed even more foreign to him her Dad's tinkering with his car had seemed to her around that age.

"But after two years, I started slipping at school enough that the teachers started noticing. I used about every excuse in the book and managed to keep them from digging deeper for about six more months. But eventually they got wise to me and their suspicions got strong enough to call Child Protective Services to take a look at my home situation. That was the beginning of the end. It didn't take them too many visits to see through the front we were putting on. They caught onto mom's health condition and put things together from there. Mom was sent to a care facility and Sarah and I went into foster care."

"How old were you then?" she asked softly, still reeling from learning how much had been thrown at him at such an early age.

"I was 13, Sarah was 15. So at least we were together for the first three years, and our foster parents were actually pretty great. But we weren't all together. And the hardest part for me was that both Sarah and my mom were actually _better off _in some ways. Without all the stress of trying so hard to hang on and get better, for _me_, they finally actually did start getting healthier, physically and mentally. Forcing things didn't work, and the guilt of relying on a little boy and watching me try so hard not to let them see how disappointed I always was that I wasn't' making things better for them…it just ate them alive. I was so angry about failing after they split us up as a family, that I finally just let everything go. And I found out a little space and relief from all that misguided _effort_ to keep up the veneer of normality is just what they needed to start flourishing again.

Mom went into remission for a while, and Sarah started coming out of her shell a little. But me…I was running on anger at the world. Seeing things work out the way they did messed with my head. If this new local priest, Father Mike, hadn't gotten a hold of me and got me involved with boxing, I would have turned into a complete delinquent and ended up in jail, just like my old man," Sam couldn't help the bitterness from creeping in as he made that final admission.

Sam finally looked at her and added, "That's how I first met Frank. We were boxing rivals. Our matches were the biggest draw in our two neighborhoods. You would think that sort of community event would churn up racial tension. But Father Mike…there was just something about him, and he managed to make it a way everyone came together instead. He made sure we were friends first, and even though we fought like hell and both always _really_ wanted to win, somehow that friendship didn't waver. And so the crowds made it a friendly contest too instead of a reason to break into a huge brawl. I still don't know how he managed it exactly because athletic contests around there don't usually work that way. He just had this big personality no one could resist," Sam said, shaking his head, the ghost of a smile lightening the mood a bit.

"Anyway, that is the story of how it is that I am both the badass who won Fight Night for the 15th three years in a row and someone who still remembers how to go all Martha Stewart with cupcakes," Sam rolled his eyes. "And that's also why I was a little weirded out to be having sexy visions of cupcakes mixed up with you. Because normally I feel like if I never see a Goddamned cupcake again in my life it will be too soon.," he grinned around the gruff tone and gave her a playful hug.

Andy laughed, "I'll bet. That must be why you didn't let on while I fumbled around with my amateur efforts," she teased with a grin, before turning serious again.

"Sam," she whispered, moving her hand up to stroke his cheek. "Thank you. For telling me," she clarified at his questioning look. After a lingering kiss, she added, "I want you to know that _I_ won't ever be better without you."

Sam tried to hide it by closing his eyes before kissing her and rolling her over to go for round two. But for an instant, Andy had seen it in his eyes. She had seen that something in him had shifted and a glimmer of the connection that had been missing between them since she left for Temagami was back. And finally, finally, she felt as if a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding for weeks now relaxed into a sigh. She finally felt like maybe they were going to be OK.

She was starting to realize he had some surprising insecurities he had long practice hiding that were very different than her own. She also finally had some basis to at least start to understand why his instinct was always to step back and give others breathing space instead of at least trying to push through problems. She was beginning to form a clearer idea why he was so hurt when she left during their suspension, but she wondered now whether she really had the faintest clue why he agreed to easily to forgive her and try starting over.

**AN:** I don't know if I can ever picture Sam spilling his guts this much in one sitting under any circumstances, but I couldn't help wondering how things might have played out if Andy knew at least a little more about what makes him tick before the whole Jerry thing knocked him for a loop. Not sure when I'll get the next chapter out, but I'll give this much of a teaser: Sam's childhood was a lot more complicated that even he knows. Lots of dark and twisty reveals to come. Eventually.

Also, I wanted to thank the few readers brave enough to leave a review of the first slightly kinky chapter. You rock! Maybe a few more will wade in to comment on all the angst now that this has taken a more serious turn. We'll see.


	3. Chapter 3: Sum of All Fears

**Author's Note: **This picks up on the night of the break-up. It's just a short bridge chapter.

**Chapter 3: Sum of All Fears**

"Huuuumphf!" Andy jolted upright with the gasp of a drowning woman, drawing in gulps of air through her constricted lungs, and trying desperately to get the shudders racking her body under control and shake the ugly vestiges of the dream from her head. But the vision of Sam's blazing eyes and sneering lips snarling accusations at her, Jerry's blood, it all refused to fade.

* * *

She and Sam were holding hands walking through a field that looked like one of the battle scenes from on of those History Channel WWII shows of his. "_You don't have to do this, McNally" … "He's playing us, there never was any Snuffleupagus brother" … "Some day, someone's gonna con you, and it will cost you your life" … _

Sam turns angry, grabs her by both arms to shake her_… "You over think every little thing, but when something matters, you don't think at all!" … _Andy recoils from Sam's hold, trips backward into Jerry, pushing him toward a landmine. Sam lunges around her to try to catch him, but Andy grabs the hem of his shirt, trying desperately to hold him back. _"NO! Sam, watch where you're stepping! Don't leave me!" … _Sam fails to grab Jerry's arm and pull him back before his foot triggers the mine, blood spills from his abdomen. Sam shakes her off to cradle Jerry's head in his hands_…" Jerry! JERRY! Stay with me, brother. JERRY!" … _

Sam stands up and looks at her with hatred in his eyes._ "Jerry would have been here to make this bust if it wasn't for you" ... "We knew this was trouble, even before we started. I can't do this anymore" … _Andy stands frozen in place as the sky opens up into a downpour mixing with her tears. Her mother, father, and Luke lead Sam safely out of the field, her mother turns back to shout at her _"Don't wallow, Andy. It is what it is" … "You were always stubborn. Even when you were twelve, there was no changing your mind. You don't make it easy to love you." _Andy collapses to her knees in the mud, sobbing. She looks around panicked, not knowing which way to move without setting off another land mine…

* * *

Oh God, it really happened. Sam blamed her, and he really ended things tonight. Even if he didn't exactly blame her, he was pushing her away. The dream may have warped things, but she really was living her worst fears. She rocked back and forth trying to calm down, but it was no use. She jumped out of bed and stated pacing in a futile attempt to leave her whirling thoughts behind.

After a half hour of prowling restlessly around her apartment, Andy's mind lands on a desperate train of thought: _What if Sam didn't really mean to end it tonight? What if he only went there after she pushed too much for him to talk, and then let her own hurt throw the accusation at him when he resisted her efforts? Was it possible? And even if it was, what should she do? He said he needs space, but doesn't she need to make it clear that the door will be open if he decides he doesn't want it to be over after all?_

Finally, Andy couldn't stand it any more. She had to pick up the phone and let him know that if he had just ended things in the heat of the moment, she would be there to try to put things right if or when he wanted to give it a shot. She would call his home number because he still had an old fashioned answering machine on that line (seriously, who else still uses those? Andy didn't even know what they looked like until she went to Sam's place). If he was having as much trouble sleeping as she was, maybe he would hear it. She took a deep breath and punched his speed dial.

"_Sam. I know you don't want to hear from me right now, but I just…" She sighed, "I just want you to know that I __know__ you and I need different things at times like this. I did everything wrong today. What I should have said tonight is it's OK if you need space. I won't push you on this, but if there's any chance you weren't __sure__ you want to end things for good… If and when you ever decide you maybe want to talk about whether we can find a way to fix things, I'll listen to what you have to say. _

_I'll even make it easy for you. We can have a code word. All you have to do is say 'mulligan' and I'll know you're ready to talk. In the meantime, please don't be so hard on yourself. You always put too much on your own shoulders. You once told me there's no one else you'd rather walk through the door with to go after Bergen. I know you were just trying to calm me down. But you really are the one that __everyone__ in the Division would pick as the person that makes them feel most confident and safe. Nothing has changed that. I hope you believe that nothing has changed that. Good night, Sam."_

Sam's lip twitched up in the faintest ghost of a smile, but he didn't move a muscle from his position slumped on his couch. And there was only the briefest flicker of reaction from his deadened eyes, which still couldn't quite focus on anything. Maybe he'd try to process what she said at some point, but right now he just couldn't follow it. He couldn't give it more than passing acknowledgement that he should have known she wouldn't be able to leave things alone for even a single night.

* * *

Andy tried really hard not to be heartbroken that Sam hadn't said a word about hearing her message, or about anything really, in the following three weeks. But it was getting harder and harder to fool herself. She certainly wasn't fooling anyone else. Her friends and family tried not say the wrong thing, but they couldn't avoid making her feel worse. Her mother finally decided to be more direct and got her a stupid self-help book, as if that would make up for all the missed years of consolation or the fact that things were still too awkward for Andy to ever cry on her shoulder.

To top it all off, when Sam finally did speak to her, he tried this fake cheery buddy tone joking about Frank's stupid back to basics edict. _Really? Is he serious with this? _For the first time, Andy's misery was overtaken by a flood of aggravation.

"Yes, sir," she snapped back shortly without pausing her stride.

"Hey, hey. Hey, wait. Wait up." Sam called after her, striding around in front of her as she paused on her way toward her squad car.

"Hey, uh, I wanted to talk to you about something," he said awkwardly, not quite able to keep looking her in the eye.

Andy's breath caught. _Would he finally say the word? _She tried, but failed to keep the hope from shining through her eyes, "Okay," she said cautiously.

After a long pause, Sam finally opened his mouth. Probably it was just her imagination, but she could almost see 'mulligan' forming on his tongue. But he stopped, cleared his throat, and settled on, "Umm…my, my keys. For the truck….It's my only other set. I should probably get those back…"

Unbelievable. Andy felt it like a kick to the gut. "Keys. Yeah, uh…I think they're in my locker. I can go grab them right now for you," she gestured vaguely back to the Barn.

"No! No. Later's fine," Sam said.

Andy shrugged, shifting her weight uncomfortably, "Have a good shift," Andy said.

"You too," Sam said with equal stiffness before turning away, "Diaz, come on, let's go," he shouted.

Andy looked down at the ground, shoulders slumping in defeat, desperately blinking back tears before they could form right there in the open parking lot.

Chris, with whom she'd put up such a brave front on the basketball court this morning, walked by and gave her shoulder a rough friendly shove, "Back to basics, I love it!" she said in his eager puppy dog voice. Andy thought about how jealous Dov would have been of his chance to ride with Sam back in simpler times, before ducking quickly into her squad car in hopes of shielding the worst of her returning misery from the rest of the uniforms pouring out of the station.

Unfortunately, she hadn't quite succeeded in pulling herself together before Nick plopped his bright, shiny rookie face into their squad car. This was going to be a _really_ long day…

* * *

**AN:** That I called you for 6 weeks line in the s3 finale drove me batty, so in my world, Andy only made one call. She basically probably said more of the right things than a truly in character canon Andy would have, but in my version she called once and then left the ball in Sam's court. I just don't buy that she repeatedly called during this break-up period.


	4. Chapter 4: Time to Let Go

**Author's Note: **One more transition chapter before we switch to Sam's side of the story after Andy leaves. This one sticks very close to canon, just adds in some thoughts and includes the difference with the phone call thing. I decided to experiment with writing this one in the first person since it revolves around key conversations, but that most likely won't be the way I write the rest of the story.

You might have noticed that I changed the rating. That's because I think at this point chapter 1 will be the only really racy one, and it can be skipped pretty easily by those who aren't meant to read M fics or who choose to avoid them.

* * *

**Chapter 4: Time to Let Go**

Andy can't believe it. She's stuck holding a freaking military hand grenade with Sam hovering around with his worried eyes trained on her. How the hell had that freak Jon Grey managed to get his hands on that anyway? Oh right, the prison buddy vet.

She tries to use Katie's trick to distract herself by asking Sam how many bones are in the human body. But, of course, that seems so far out of left field to him, it just makes him think she's losing it. She actually does feel hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up at how the land mine metaphor in her recurring dream has practically come true, especially when Sam asks if it's her first time holding one. But she's afraid a laughing jag might cause her to actually drop the damn thing though, so she settles for a sarcastic reply about it not really being a goal of hers. She can't stop babbling out a few other nervous comments as some sort of pathetic self pep talk while she's at it.

Her comment about if it's the last thing she ever does at least it will be a first apparently doesn't work to lighten Sam's mood though. Because now he's the one who jumps in babbling nonsense.

"I wish I was more like you. I wish you were in my head. I wish you could read my mind," he says with a look on his face she finds impossible to read, other than the fact it's no longer the emotionless mask he's worn since they split.

"What are you _talking_ about?" Andy asks impatiently.

He pauses for a long time, overcoming two false starts before he's able to push anything else through his lips.

"I love you, Andy….I do," he finally manages. Looks as if the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders as he says it.

So. No code word. _What the hell? _He starts a relationship conversation _now_, struggles and dances around things. And then he chooses to skip the simple way she'd handed him to let her know he wants to work things out to instead blurt out the feelings she's waited so long for him to actually put into words? Seriously? Where does that even leave them? Before he can go on with the grand BUT (_But it's not enough, But it's still never going to work, But…_), she forces her teary gaze to meet his.

"Sam…I'm holding a _bomb_," she reminds him in a tight voice. Seriously, the way her heart was racing and her hands were getting clammy, she really was gonna drop this stupid grenade any minute now.

Sam must have read at least that much. Because he steps forward and places his steady hands around her shaking ones.

He looks her straight in the eye and says, "So am I." Which, hmm. The way he said it makes her wonder if she'd read him wrong after all. She just…she can't get any kind of perspective on what the hell is going on here right now.

As soon as the giant soft spoken ETF guy comes in, she asks Sam to give her a little room. Because she is having serious problems breathing right now.

ETF guy launches into some soothing nonsense speech about pedicures. Guess that's his standard speech for female vics or something. She would snort and roll her eyes, but it actually somehow works to calm her down. Before she knows it, he says it's all clear and all she has to do is let go. Just put the grenade behind her. Simple as that, he says. Except it's not simple at all. Now all of a sudden all those metaphorical land mines are attached to the grenade. She knows she should just walk away from those as well, just like she'd planned to do this morning. But freaking Sam has made clearing her mind of everything impossible.

Finally, she sets those irrational thoughts aside before the gentle giant thinks she's crazy enough to need a visit to the shrink. She relaxes her cramped hand, and lets out a loud sigh. Sam doesn't seem inclined to say more until some of the adrenaline has worn off. Belatedly realizing how badly his timing sucks, she guesses. But he's not letting her out of his sight either. He insists on driving her back to the barn and leaving Collins and Epstein to ride together. So, not like she really has a choice about letting go just yet anyway.

* * *

Back at the barn, Sam shadows her into the locker room. Andy tries desperately not to remember all the other times they've hung out together here after a tense shift. Sam is just sitting staring at his hands, before finally breaking the silence to say she was brave. Andy just brushes that off, deflecting the credit to Katie.

When she's shrugged herself into her coat, Sam finally gets the courage to bring up the elephant in the room. "Andy…what I said to you…" he leaves the sentence hanging for such a painfully long time, Andy finally decides she'll bail him out and say the retraction for him.

"It's OK. I get it. Heat of the moment," she shrugs.

"No," he says before getting up to step closer to her. "I meant it. It's true…" he trails off. When she meets his eyes expectantly, Sam can't hold it together long enough to continue. He shifts gears into his bantering tone before adding, "There are 206 bones in the human body. I saw it on Grey's Anatomy," with a weak, goofy laugh.

Andy slams her locker shut and mutters, "I'm going home," before brushing past him.

"C'mon. McNally," Sam says with a pleading rough edge she's never quite heard before. But she doesn't care. She is _pissed_.

"I don't care anymore, OK? I don't care if you're serious. I don't care if you're joking," she shakes her head. "I don't care anymore," she repeats, turning to continue out of the locker room. "Just leave me alone."

"I'm not going to leave you alone," Sam replies, following close on her heels. "I screwed up. OK. Things got tough, and I walked away. I thought I was doing the right thing…"

Andy cuts him off as she turns to face him, "Do you have any idea what you put me through? You broke up with me in a parking lot, and for _six weeks _you didn't do anything to try to fix things. I gave you the easiest way possible to start a conversation, but you didn't even mention my call."

"Andy…" Sam interjects.

"No," Andy continues.

"Andy…" Sam tries again.

"No. It's too _late_. I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore," she declares, turning away.

"You don't have to do anything," Sam says desperately, moving around to block her path. "You don't have to do anything. I'm gonna do it all. I'm gonna do everything, OK. I'm going to show you every single day, until you say yes."

Andy just stares back, stone faced. She still has no idea what he wants her to say yes _to_. Was he just trying to get her to forgive him so they could be friends again? Because he still hasn't said the code word. So it seems like maybe he still wants it both ways. He was the one who said there was no going back once they started. Yet for weeks he's been acting like that's exactly what he thought would happen. Then he launches into a list of examples, as if they were some middle aged couple who's biggest problem was who did the household chores. God, he still doesn't get it.

"I'm gonna make you dinner. I'm gonna take out your garbage. And I'll walk your dog," he added more softly.

And, seriously, _what_? That one confuses her so much all she can do is mutter with a baffled shrug, "I don't have a dog."

"Then let's get a dog. Labradoodle, mutt from the pound. I don't care. Let's bring him home, and call him Boo. Boo Radley. I've always liked that for a dog." Sam plows on.

"Boo Radley," she can't keep the smile in her voice. And he's totally confused her with that let's. As if he meant couple us. And settling down and commitment. And part of her still wants to try. But. But she's completely exhausted and not up to analyzing the earnest way he's saying all of this. So she looks down at the floor, torn.

Sam tries to follow her eyes and force her to look at him, "OK, look," he pauses until she raises her head again. "Can we just start with a drink? Just a drink?" he pleads. When she remains silent and looks back down at her shoes, he adds, "Please. Andy, just give me a chance."

He was starting to wear her down. But… She looks up and shrugs, still not sure what to do.

"I'll be at the Penny," he says, deciding to leave it up to her rather than pushing further here in the hall of the station.

As Sam walks toward the men's locker room to get his things, Andy continues slowly in the other direction, entirely unsure how to take all of that or what to do. She doesn't have long to ponder it, though, because Luke calls out to her not five seconds later. That seems like a sign to her. The universe telling her she needs some perspective before having that drink.

So. She goes. No over thinking this time. She'll make Project Dakota her immediate future. Turns out Nick did as well. Go figure. She tries hard not to make it too obvious that a big part of her is already starting to regret this.

* * *

**AN: **Thanks so much to those who have reviewed. I think I responded individually to everyone logged in with the private messaging setting allowed. But if I missed anyone, please know that every bit of feedback is definitely appreciated!


	5. Chapter 5: Too Late to Explain

**Author's Note: **Here's another very short chapter to ease into Sam's point of view. (for some reason, I'm having more trouble than I expected switching gears) It's still in the misery zone addressing what went down in the season 3 finale. The next one will take us into the aftermath. Just to give you a little tease, I'll be introducing an OC (original character) named Kate in the next chapter or two who's going to play a major part in revealing Sam's past and helping him pull himself together.

**Chapter 5: Too Late to Explain**

So. She goes. No over thinking this time. She'll make Project Dakota her immediate future. Turns out Nick did as well. Go figure. She tries hard not to make it too obvious that a big part of her is already starting to regret this...

* * *

Sam tells himself for the hundredth time to stop staring a hole through the door. The next time he hears it open, his heart will _not_ skip a beat, he tells himself sternly. When he glances in the opposite direction, hoping for a distraction, all he manages to see is Becca mirroring his own pathetic hopes. He knows he should man up and put her out of her misery like he promised Ollie. But somehow putting into words that he's not coming seems like sealing his own fate, and he's not ready to throw in the towel just yet. So he just settles for returning her wave, only forcing a weak "Hey" past his lips. How serious can she be about Oliver after one night of pool anyway, right?

He breaks the eye contact, and turns his gaze to the only neutral place left, starts fiddling with the shots he'd already ordered for McNally and him, figuring they both would need a quick jolt of liquid courage before they got into this. Thing is, Sam still didn't know where he was going to start, how he could possibly explain to her what's been going on in his head.

He could tell he wasn't saying the right things earlier, that he hadn't even begun to get through to Andy until he mentioned getting the dog. Honestly, he didn't know where that came from, except that Sarah had wanted one desperately when they were kids, and he sort of had too. But pets weren't allowed in their building. Dogs were a tough one for cops too, unless you had a spouse with job whose hours were less crazy. Andy had told him once that the McNally plans to get one were put on hold when her mom left. Maybe some part of his mind thought blurting that out would be some sort of bridge to common emotional ground, the Boo Radley name reminding her that he had opened up to her a little, more than he had to anyone else.

Then again, how would she know that? It's not like he'd ever put into words just how special she was to him. Even when he finally, _finally_ managed to wrap his tongue around a simple I love you, he'd done it in a way so that she wasn't even sure he meant it for chrissake. Then he went and made it a thousand times worse with that stupid Grey's Anatomy joke. He was going to have to do better if this was going to turn out well. No more using his usual bag of tricks for deflecting any conversation likely to veer into waters he wasn't sure he could navigate. The problem was he didn't have any experience playing this sort of thing straight. Sam Swarek does not do earnest and heartfelt. His friends let him get away with it. Sarah does too because she knows how to read between the lines and tune into most of what he leaves unspoken. They'd grown up with so many taboo subjects, they had a better non-verbal shorthand than most twins. Sam supposes he had unrealistic expectations that after two years of riding in a squad car together McNally would be able to do the same. He sighs as regret washes over him again about the mess he'd made of things.

The door slams open loudly. He breaks his promise not to search for her face, only to be let down yet again, this time by Peck barreling through the door. The expression on his face must have telegraphed who he was looking for because Peck strolls up to him using her trademark mockery to get him to snap out of it a little.

"What, are you drinking alone?" she taunts, as if that wasn't a pretty common habit of his.

"Uh, looks that way," is all he can manage.

"Hey, have you seen Nick at all?" she asks, obviously expecting to meet him there.

Sam makes a show of looking around the Penny, as if he hasn't scoured every inch of the place already making sure he hadn't missed McNally. "Uh, no, not…" he says, starting to get a very bad feeling about the coincidence of them both having gone missing. Certain possibilities are starting to click into place, none of which he wants dwell on.

"You know what? Let's celebrate….Until Nick gets here, yeah?" he adds in a half-hearted attempt to pretend he hasn't already concluded they've both been stood up.

"Alright. But only because you seem so lonely and pathetic sitting here by yourself," she teases, clearly not yet realizing she's in for the same long night.

That does make him laugh a little. "Tell me again why the rookies don't like you?" he asks, clinking glasses in a toast before they both down their shots.

Turns out it doesn't take her as long as he expected to clue in and admit the obvious, though. Only twenty minutes later she says, "I don't think he's coming. I think we're drinking alone," her tone somewhere in the zone between pissed off and sad.

Sam wonders if she's really ready to admit that or just wants him to buy another round. Either way, he's willing to humor her. What else is he going to do with his night? He buys one for Becca too since she's drifted closer to their little pity party. His mind drifts back to another terrible night when he found himself left behind and waiting around for no rational reason with Jo while Andy went into the ICU where Callaghan was clinging to life. At least this time there was booze instead of just hospital coffee. That would feel like a small victory if tonight didn't seem even more like the death of futile hopes.

* * *

**AN: **Thanks again to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited. Every bit of feedback is definitely appreciated! You all rock!


	6. Chapter 6: Signals Missed

**Author's Note: **I decided to go with one more short reaction chapter before Kate makes her first appearance. But once she does arrive, she'll be a handful.

**Chapter 6: Signals Missed**

His mind drifts back to another terrible night when he found himself left behind and waiting around for no rational reason with Jo while Andy went into the ICU where Callaghan was clinging to life. At least this time there was booze instead of just hospital coffee. That would feel like a small victory if tonight didn't seem even more like the death of futile hopes.

* * *

When Sam makes it home after closing time finally gave him no choice about giving up on McNally, at least for tonight, he suddenly can't stand the sight of the mess. Oliver was right, this fog of apathy had gotten out of hand. He snorts, 'new me.' What the hell had he been thinking? The place truly was disgusting, and he couldn't live with it for another minute. He strode to the kitchen, grabbed several large heavy duty trash bags and started attacking the clutter that had accumulated.

It takes him over an hour just to get the bulk of the take out cartons out of the way. He finally scoops up the mail that's piled up and needs closer attention to separate the junk mail from what needs to be kept. As he gets it into a neat enough stack to carry somewhere he can sit, he uncovers his answering machine and notices the red light blinking away. He so rarely gets calls on that line anymore, he tends to ignore it. But suddenly he remembers registering Andy's voice the night after he'd walked away from her. He never had gone back to play the message and listen to what she had to say.

All of sudden, the manic energy that had been driving his little cleaning binge evaporate. He stared at the light for probably a good five minutes before finally reaching a shaking hand to press play, holding his breath until her voice floods into the silent room.

"_Sam. I know you don't want to hear from me right now, but I just…" She sighed, "I just want you to know that I __know__ you and I need different things at times like this. I did everything wrong today. What I should have said tonight is it's OK if you need space. I won't push you on this, but if there's any chance you weren't __sure__ you want to end things for good… If and when you ever decide you maybe want to talk about whether we can find a way to fix things, I'll listen to what you have to say. _

_I'll even make it easy for you. We can have a code word. All you have to do is say 'mulligan' and I'll know you're ready to talk. In the meantime, please don't be so hard on yourself. You always put too much on your own shoulders. You once told me there's no one else you'd rather walk through the door with to go after Bergen. I know you were just trying to calm me down. But you really are the one that __everyone__ in the Division would pick as the person that makes them feel most confident and safe. Nothing has changed that. I hope you believe that nothing has changed that. Good night, Sam."_

Sam sags against the wall, his legs barely able to support him. He rasps out a strangled gasping, "No." How could he have missed this? How could he have been so buried in misery that he let all this time pass without even checking to see what she'd said? A single tear wells up and spills from his eye as the truth he doesn't want to admit stares him in the face. He didn't bother to listen because he didn't think Andy had any real idea how he was feeling or what he needed. Turns out not only was she much better clued in than he thought, she also knew how hard it would be for him to reverse course and make any attempt to patch things up once the regret finally caught up with him. A code word. A bitter chuckle bubbled up as he thought how McNally that plan was. Jesus, no wonder his little speech didn't get anywhere with her tonight. It probably sounded more like a peace offering than an offer to try to really talk things through and try again.

Sam's legs finally did give out, and he slumped to the floor as a new thought hit him. In that moment he was sure she was gone. She and Collins must have signed on to Project Dakota, mostly likely in an under cover capacity. He had suspected it earlier, but he was sure of it now. There was no chance she was just too exhausted/wound up/pissed off to deal with him tonight. No, she was gone. He'd come to his senses too late.

* * *

**AN: **As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited. Every bit of feedback is definitely appreciated! You rock!


	7. Chapter 7: Flash from the Past

**Author's Note: **OK, we finally move on to the post-313 aftermath in this one. As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this. Every bit of feedback is definitely appreciated! You're the best!

**Chapter 7: Flash from the Past  
**

In that moment he was sure she was gone. She and Collins must have signed on to Project Dakota, mostly likely in an under cover capacity. He had suspected it earlier, but he was sure of it now. There was no chance she was just too exhausted/wound up/pissed off to deal with him tonight. No, she was gone. He'd come to his senses too late.

* * *

"Sammy, you're coming. You have no choice about this. It's long past time you snapped out of it. And if you don't, Frank is going to put you on leave," Oliver warned.

Sam snorted, "That's not gonna happen."

"Ye-ah. It will. I'm serious, Sam. He told me himself to deliver this message. If you don't start showing signs of having your head on straight and make an effort to show you still give a damn about your fellow officers, he's going to have a more official discussion with you about it. So unless you're really eager to have that talk and force him to make an ultimatum, you're coming. End of story," Oliver stared Swarek down, serious as a heart attack.

"Fine," Sam groaned after unsuccessfully glaring right back with a look that would have sent anyone else packing. "But I'm not singing. Listening to the rest of you yowl your way through karaoke will be painful enough. So tell everyone to back off pestering me about it," Sam demanded.

"Done," Shaw agreed, easily. Then after a pause added, "Look, Sam, we're just worried. I know you're not ready to talk about it yet, but…I just…I think you're being way too negative about this McNally task force thing."

"What task force? Oh, you mean the one Frank won't tell me anything about?" Sam interrupted, his face already showing that he was completely shutting down again.

"Just because Frank won't give in and risk the integrity of security protocols-with good reason given your track record, I might add-doesn't mean that Andy being on it isn't the worst kept secret in Division history. So stop trying to change the subject," Oliver countered impatiently.

"Which is?" Sam mocked, eyebrows raised.

"That just because McNally agreed to take the assignment doesn't mean she's over you or that she won't ever be ready to give you another chance if you really are serious about trying to actually be all in this time," Oliver said softly.

"Pretty sure that's exactly what it means," Sam corrected him with a sigh. "I tried, OK. But I was too late, so she left," Sam admitted.

"You don't know that. Buddy, look. I overheard what you said in the hallway that night…"

Sam slammed his locker shut. His eyes flashed with anger briefly, before returning to the dead look he'd been sporting for the past few weeks. He moved to brush past Shaw, who stepped into his path.

"Wait. Just hear me out for a minute. You made a good start, Sam. But your timing was lousy, and it's going to take more than a few words, however sincere, to fix things. Yeah, she _said_ it was too late, but c'mon. Consider that day she'd been through. Who knows what was going through her mind that night? Maybe McNally just knew she wasn't ready to let go of those negative feelings yet. That doesn't mean she won't ever be. And some time and space to let the hurt wear off a little before you try to actually put some actions behind those promises you made might even be the best thing for the two of you.

Look, if there's one thing McNally has more capacity for than just about anyone I know, it's forgiveness. If she can let that flaky mother of hers back in her life, there's a pretty good chance she'll do the same for you. You may be your own worst enemy sometimes, Sam, but if you don't let your pride get in the way, there's no reason this thing between the two of you has to be over. So why not just wait and see whether she's willing to meet you halfway once she gets back? That's all I'm saying," Oliver finally ran out of steam.

"Are you done yet, Dr. Phil? Cuz I've had kind of a long day myself," Sam muttered, shrugging his tense shoulders uncomfortably. But there wasn't much force behind the sarcasm. Thing is, Ollie might possibly have a small point. He just wasn't willing to get his hopes up again at this point.

"Yeah," Oliver said with a jerky nod. He decided he'd pushed it enough for now. They were going to have to rely on their secret weapon to be the closer. No one else could get through Sammy's thick skull quite like her. Shaw figured he'd done his part. The rest would be up to Kate.

* * *

"So you really think karaoke night was the best choice for snapping Sam out of his funk?" Traci asked Shaw dubiously. "Andy said it wasn't really his thing," she added.

"Oh, I know. He hates it," Oliver admitted, unconcerned. "But don't worry. It won't matter once our surprise guest shows up. At least I hope not. She's either going to finally straighten him out…or send him into complete depression. But I've never seem Sam like this before. We had to take a risk. Right?" Oliver looked to Frank and Noelle for reassurance that they still thought this was the right move.

"Suu-ure," Noelle said grudgingly.

"Absolutely," Frank said firmly.

They exchanged a glance.

"Fine. Yes, it'll work," Noelle huffed. "It was more of a prolonged childhood crush anyway, I guess," she muttered under her breath.

Now it was Traci and Gail's turn to exchange a glance with raised brows. Gail swallows the snarky question on her lips and settled for an amused smirk. _An old Swarek crush? This should be interesting_, she thought.

Dov and Chris bounced over to their table after finishing a reprise of their infamous _Baby Got Back_ duet, cutting off the conversation anyway. The senior officers wouldn't say much more about Sam's personal life with the Wonder Twins around, she figures.

Gail makes a show letting the boys think they'd succeeded in cheering her up. Actually, their dorkiness had made her forget a little how pissed she is that Nick bailed on her again. It was kind of sweet the way they'd been making sure she was occupied since he left. Even Chris's baby Daddy drama didn't annoy her as much as she thought it would. He really was a sap, but the way he got attached to the kid was sort of infectious. Even Dov was starting to make peace with it, and he had to deal with high maintenance Denise on a regular basis. It was nice to see the two of them having fun hanging out together without the whole Family Circus in tow.

Dov let out a wolf whistle as he looked over her shoulder toward the front door. "So that's the plan to cheer Swarek up? Hiring a celebrity look alike stripper? Nice! Who chose the dead ringer for Marissa Miller?" Dov asked.

"Who?" half the table asked simultaneously.

"Marissa Miller. Victoria's Secret model. Got the _Sports Illustrated_ swimsuit cover in 2008," Dov rattled off. "What?" he asked as everyone stared. "Oh come on! It's not weird to know that. Who doesn't remember the _SI_ cover girls? It's like the Bond Girls. Lots of guys know that stuff," Dov argued.

Oliver smacked him in the back of the head, "Ouch!" Dov whined.

"She's not a stripper, dumbass! That…is our secret weapon. Kate was probably the best Special Victims Detective the 15th, maybe even the city, has ever had," Oliver said, shooting Dov a dirty look. "She broke more dirt bags, just broke them down completely, than you'll probably bust in your entire career."

"Yeah, don't let the tousled, honey blonde hair and perfect body fool you," Noelle jumped in. "She's probably smarter than everyone at this table combined…Bitch," she added with an affectionate eye roll and laugh. "She left to get a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and now she and her husband have a huge military grant to study and work to rehabilitate combat vets with traumatic brain injuries. They just joined the University of Toronto faculty after being based at McGill for the last five years."

The rookies all looked at each other with stunned, impressed looks.

"And that's just for starters," Oliver jumped in. "She's probably the only ambitious up-and-comer who ever truly threatened your mother, Peck. There was only one problem with her going too far in the department."

"What was that?" Gail asked, now truly intrigued. Anyone who could rattle her mother was someone she wanted to know more about.

"Her father. Or rather, her whole estranged family," Shaw answered.

"What does that mean, exactly?" Gail asked with a frown, knowing full well how connections came into play with the brass, but still uncomfortable every time it comes up, even after her demotion.

"Well, her maiden name was Connolly," Shaw answered, shooting Gail a meaningful look.

Gail choked on her drink. "What, you mean Conolly, as in the Irish mobster Connollys? How did she ever even make it into the Academy, especially given how many cops are already rumored to be on their payroll?"

"I wasn't kidding when I said estranged. Plus, she was a hotshot at the top of her class at university. The department wanted her enough to take a chance on hiring her as a detective. She took a Special Victims slot since her family stayed out of anything that touched the prostitution rackets. Not to mention having a reputation for coming down hard on anyone in their organization who had a reputation for smacking their wives or kids around. But the trust that she was truly free of her family's influence was never quite solid enough for her to rise high enough to have the control she wanted. Plus, she got tired of cleaning up domestic messes instead of trying to prevent them. So she went back to school to train for what she's doing now," Shaw finished.

"Oliver, you're burying the lead," Frank interrupted. "The important thing is that Kate has known Sam longer than anyone. She knew him even before I started boxing against him in high school."

"Before he hit puberty, she used to say," Oliver smirked.

Kate spotted them, and waved before making her way over. She stopped after a few steps though, and they all looked over to follow the direction of her gaze had drifted.

Sam had just come back in from "a migrane prevention break" out back.

"Sammy!" she called out, a blinding smile breaking over her face.

The crowd parted, rather stunned by the glam new face gracing the Penny.

Kate launched herself at Sam, who grinned back before gathering her into a bear hug and lifting her off her feet.

* * *

**AN: **OK, commence freaking out. I know at least half the readers are going to be pissed off that Kate gets a hug before Andy ever got one on the show. But I have to rile you all up a little, right? BTW, I know some (many?) of you are probably smelling a potential Mary Sue character here. She's a little bit that way, but I promise I'll give Kate some flaws to go along with the outsized resume. ;) Also, you don't actually have to worry _too_ much about Kate, I swear.


	8. Chapter 8: Baiting the Hook

**Author's Note: **I was going to write the whole first night of this intervention as one chapter. But I decided to split things to more quickly post a short chapter with the first part of the night.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this. The feedback is definitely much appreciated! You all are great!

**Chapter 8: Baiting the Hook**

Kate launches herself at Sam, who grins back before gathering her into a bear hug and lifting her off her feet.

* * *

Sam finally sets her back on her feet, stepping back to get a good look at her, hands moving up to her shoulders. "What a great surprise. Sarah said you were moving back here, but I didn't know you were settled in yet. It's great to see you again. Really," Sam says, giving her a reassuring squeeze when he notes the uncertainty in her eyes.

"We're not really. Settled yet. I've been meaning to call you, but getting all our lab equipment transferred and set up properly has been insanely complicated…" She trails off, realizing how lame that sounds, even to her own ears, and shrugs. "Anyway, when Frank called and mentioned tonight, I figured I'd just show up and surprise you."

Sam breaks contact to wave her off, "It's OK," he said nonchalantly before pulling her in for another quick hug, before adding softly, "I wouldn't have been good company the last few weeks anyway."

This time Kate is the one to pull back, sliding her arms up to get a grip on his shoulders and make him look her in the eyes, "So I hear. Don't think you're going to avoid having a long conversation with me about that later," she warns, giving him a little shake when he couldn't hold her gaze any longer.

"Yeah, I figured you probably wouldn't give me any choice about that," he finally admits gruffly, shooting a suspicious look at Oliver and Frank. "The ambush at work here is less than subtle," he adds dryly.

"It's not some grand conspiracy, Sammy," she mocks. "And anyway, all of that heavy stuff can wait a while. We're all going to have some fun first." She catches movement at the door in the corner of her eye, and glances over while stepping back to gesture in that direction. "Danny has a surprise for you too," she says excitedly, with a broad grin.

Sam sees him pushing his way through the door with two guitar cases. "Oh no," Sam says firmly. "I told Oliver I'm just a spectator tonight," Sam objects.

"Oh, you'll change your mind," Kate drawls smugly. "That's not just any guitar he brought along for you."

Sam eyes her suspiciously, but can't help being intrigued. What the heck did the two of them have up their sleeves? She seems absolutely certain that he'd be too tempted to even think about turning down the chance to play it. Between his own aborted music career and all the books and documentaries he's done about music, Danny knows everybody who's anybody in the music world. So Sam knows he's a goner.

Sam sighs, "Should I even pretend I can win this battle?"

"Nope," she says, grinning even wider. "I know exactly what bait works with you, Sammy, so it's a lost cause," she continues with a wink.

And it's true. Kate Connolly has known exactly how to wind him up and wrap him around her little finger since he was barely old enough to be sure girls didn't have cooties. Back then her favorite game was to toy with the little brother of the lonely girl she'd taken under her Queen Bee wing. He'd spent most of his adolescence hopelessly fixated on Sarah's outrageous sexy friend.

She grabs his arm now to drag him along in her wake. "Come on, the least you can do is take your guitar for the evening off my husband's hands."

Sam gives a half hearted groan, but he follows along willingly enough, shaking his head and even starting to grin a little along with her. The thing was, he never could stay mad at her for long. Especially after she came back from college and had grown out of that mind game phase, and they'd bonded on the job. And the guy she'd ended up marrying was also one of those people everyone just loves in spite of themselves. A world class scientist whose love of music was just completely infectious. Sam had wanted to hate him, really, _really_ hate him. But the truth was that he really likes the guy. Danny was just plain _fun_. He makes Kate light up like a Christmas tree, and loves her to death. The two of them were just so right together that Sam had made peace with the whole situation a long time ago.

"Need a hand?" he asks Danny.

"Took your sweet time asking, Swarek," Danny teases, handing one guitar case over. "Great to see you, man," he adds clapping Sam on the back with his freed hand.

"You too," Sam replies. "So uh, what's the deal with this supposedly irresistible guitar," he asks, waving the case a little.

"Careful with that, buddy. Kate had me bring out the big guns tonight. Nothing's too good to get an old friend to loosen up a little," Danny grins, not phased in the least by Sam's sarcasm.

Sam gets a better protective grip on it, shielding it from the increasingly drunken crowd. He shoots a questioning look between Danny and Kate trying to guess what sort of rock memorabilia he might be holding.

Danny leans in close before saying in a conspiratorial tone, "You my friend are holding one of Alex Lifeson's old acoustics. Signed and everything."

The stunned look on Sam's face send both Danny and Kate into fits of laughter.

"Very funny," Sam grumbles. "What is it really?"

"No, no. It wasn't a joke. Rush donated a few guitars for the charity auction we held for wounded warriors. But this one Alex gave to me personally after we wrapped his segment of my last documentary," Danny explained.

"Seriously? Alex just _gave_ you this? And you brought it to _the_ _Penny_?" Sam asked incredulously.

"Are you kidding? This cop bar is probably the safest place in town. It's not like anyone's gonna try to steal it. Besides, we knew it would take something really good to get you to up on stage to play along with me," Danny said with a wink.

Sam's jaw drops. They really weren't kidding. Both of them were standing there staring at him with big toothy grins splitting their faces. Sam was speechless.

Finally he pulls himself together and says with mock calm, "Well then. I guess we're going to have to show these clowns what real music sounds like."

Kate squeals and does a little victory dance, "Yes! I knew this would do the trick."

* * *

After Kate had said her hellos to the rest of her old colleagues and introduced Danny to those who hadn't met him, the Penny was readily converted from karaoke to an impromptu acoustic concert. Kate had given Danny a song list of songs she was pretty sure Sam knew how to play or were at least favorites of his. Sam had held the Lifeson guitar reverently and gingerly at first. But before long he'd gotten over being star struck and his usual allergy to performing in front of fellow cops. (he'd always refused to take part in any charity talent show event or karaoke outing ever dreamed up by anyone at the 15th)

Oliver bumps her shoulder as they stand waiting to bring drink refills back from the bar. "Nice work," he says, nodding toward her two favorite men in the world as they strummed away at their latest tune.

"All in a day's work," she replies happily. "Music is the best way in for guys like Sammy who are allergic to traditional therapy." She glances over at Oliver, "Especially when I can get Danny involved. No one can resist my husband for long," she grins.

Oliver nods. "It's why we couldn't hold it against him for taking you off the market. Even if it did break Sam's heart," he adds softly, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes.

Her eyes cloud over. She looks down before replying softly, "I know it did. But things were just too complicated, Oliver. It would have never lasted. Too many family secrets. Some he still doesn't know about," she adds, looking Oliver directly in the eye. "Trust me. I did the right thing leaving."

Oliver gives her a long, searching look before deciding not to push it further. "If you say so," he says dubiously. "But you might have given him some say in that," he adds, shifting his attention back to the stage, before scooping up the pitchers of beer they'd been waiting for and walking back to the table.

Kate watches him go, not ready to rejoin the boisterous group just yet.

* * *

**AN: **So far, so good with the intervention mission. We'll see how it plays out…


	9. Chapter 9: Love the One You're With

**Author's Note: **Here we go with part 2 of the intervention. As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this. The feedback is definitely much appreciated! I can't reply to them, but it's interesting to see such strong reactions to this story from some guest reviewers who have polar opposite views about who was most at fault in the McSwarek relationship's crash and burn trajectory during season 3.

**Chapter 9: Love the One You're With**

Kate watches Oliver go, not ready to rejoin the boisterous group just yet.

* * *

She looks back toward the stage and comforts herself by noting how well things are going. The past can't be changed anyway.

Danny is a master at drawing out lesser players, allowing them to play along with simpler accompaniments without most people noticing, and interacting and expressing approval as whoever is playing along with him plays something well without ever seeming the least bit patronizing. He's also a natural showman who owns small venues like this, throwing out small anecdotes and easy jokes between songs that keep the audience hanging on every word and just as caught up in the fun as whoever he plays with. Sam looked like he was having the time of his life as they worked their way through some of his favorite classic rock songs. He even joined in to sing along with Danny on a few of them, which meant he was definitely caught up in the moment.

* * *

"Who knew Swarek had this in him?" Traci giggles.

"Yeah, this is totally hot," Gail breathes. "Why weren't any of my college professors like this?"

"Right? I still say both Kate and Danny look more like movie stars. Danny sort of looks like that guy who plays the Mossad agent on Covert Affairs, except with green eyes." Dov says. "Hey, maybe he actually is a spy…" he starts winding up to launch a tall tale.

"Yeah, genius. All that music and sciency stuff is just a cover for his _real _work keeping tabs on secret military experiments diverting funds from his Canadian and U.S. sponsors," Oliver mocked. "You know," he continued, pointed with eyes going wide with feigned realization. "I bet he's creating an army of Manchurian vets programmed to be a sleeper cell of Jason Bournes ready to activate and start a coup if Israel bombs Iran without getting support. Are you a real cop, or Rick Castle?"

The table erupts in laughter as Dov just slinks down in his chair. "OK, so that was pretty stupid. But who would have thought a guy like that could be a neuroscientist either?" he asks defensively. "He's like Swarek's even cooler brother or something."

"Guess she has a type," Gail observes, glancing over to where Kate was still lingering by the bar.

Oliver and Noelle both shoot her a glance and shake their heads, signaling her to drop it before Epstein gets her drift and starts asking questions.

* * *

Danny had just finished a couple CCR songs, _Down on the Corner_ and _Born on the Bayou_. He pauses just long enough to smile at Sam and say a quick, "How about a little Stephen Stills everyone?" before launching right into it. Kate notices Sam stiffen and fail to join in even though she can tell recognized the song. All the pleasure drains out of his face as Danny finishes the introduction and starts in with the lyrics to _Love the One You're With_.

_If you're down and confused _

_And you don't remember who you're talking to _

_Concentration slips away _

_Because your baby is so far away _

_Well there's a rose in a fisted glove _

_And the eagle flies with the dove _

_And if you can't be with the one you love, honey _

_Love the one you're with _

_Love the one you're with _

_Love the one you're with _

_Love the one you're with _

_Don't be angry, don't be sad _

_Don't sit crying talking good times you've had _

_Well there's a girl sitting right next to you _

_And she's just waiting for something to do _

_Well there's a rose in a fisted glove _

_And the eagle flies with the dove _

_And if you can't be with the one you love, honey _

_Love the one you're with _

_Love the one you're with _

_Love the one you're with_

Doo doo doo doo

Kate catches Danny's eyes and shoots him a look, which he gets right away. Right, completely stupid song choice. He rolls his eyes at himself and winds down the song, skipping the last verse and repeats of the chorus.

Kate jumps up on the stage, saying loudly. "Sammy, looks like that hand Brennan smashed up is getting a little stiff. Why don't I take a turn while you take a break?"

Sam shoots her a grateful look, mutters a quick thanks under his breath.

Kate continues in a low voice, "I'll just do one quick one with him, then let's get out of here, OK? Go get some air, and I'll make our excuses. Danny will keep them occupied til closing and swing by your place later." She shoots Danny a pointed look.

"Yeah, yeah. That's a great plan. You two should catch up," Danny agrees quickly.

Sam expels a harsh breath. "Fine," he says tersely, handing Kate the guitar. "Danny, thanks man. That was great. Really," he swallows thickly. "I just…it was a treat to play with you. Thanks for the gesture…bringing one of your treasures along. I'm glad you're back in town," Sam claps him on the back before heading out the back door.

Kate shakes her head at Oliver and Frank's raised brows, signaling them not to follow Sam.

"Oliver, this cheesy song is for you," she shouts, before she and Danny ham up a version of Oliver's favorite Sheriff ballad _When I'm With You _just to make sure he sticks around. Ollie has the whole place singing along, mostly off tune, and the tension passes quickly.

Kate tells the audience that she'll spare them her weak musical skills and leave her husband to entertain them as soon as they finish.

She stops by the table full of her friends, quickly filling Oliver in on her improvised plan under cover of his thank you hug before heading after Sam.

* * *

**AN: **Sorry, I went with another short chapter before tackling any heavy conversations. The next chapter should be longer.

A little background about how I dreamed up Danny's character: He is sort of intentionally a male Mary Sue (overly perfect) character, more so than Kate. (though I did try to make him human by having him make the block headed song choice) Since he plays a much more peripheral part in the story, hopefully I can get away with it.

Also, in my defense, I based him partly on a real professor by the name of Daniel Levitin, though I changed his looks a little. Real life Dainel is a neuroscientist who really did used to be in a rock band before he got his advanced degrees. He wrote a book called This Is Your Brain on Music. He's an American, but is on the faculty of McGill Univ. in Montreal. He's pretty good looking dark haired guy, though not quite as hot as Oded Fehr or anything. LOL. He also has never worked on traumatic brain injuries to my knowledge. His specialty is how the brain processes music and what qualities of music produce emotional reactions.


	10. Chapter 10: Baby Steps

**Author's Note: **As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this. The feedback is definitely much appreciated!

**Chapter 10: Baby Steps**

Kate stops by the table full of her friends, quickly filling Oliver in on her improvised plan under cover of his thank you hug before heading after Sam.

* * *

"Hey," Sam calls as she pushes through the back door.

"Hey," Kate replies, relieved that he's leaning casually against his truck with a lop sided grin, not looking the least tense or upset.

"So I guess I must have been moping pretty badly if Ollie and Frank recruited you to swing by," Sam said with an eye roll.

"Guess so," she agrees as she walks over. "Risky gambit. Did it work at all before my husband put his foot in it?"

Sam waves her off. "Yeah, it was fun playing with him actually. Maybe I did need that. And it's nice to know he's not perfect."

"No one's perfect, Sammy. "You sure you're OK?"

Sam shrugs, "The song wasn't that big a deal. Not that it wasn't an awkward choice anyway, but it just reminded me of an inside joke with Andy about the last karaoke night I missed."

"Ah, I see. Well, that sounds like a conversation that might go better in your cozy living room. Ready to go?" she asks.

"Sure. Jump in," he waves her toward the passenger side before leveraging himself upright to get in himself.

* * *

"So. Tell me about this Andy," Kate prompts Sam, after they'd settled into Sam's couch with a couple scotches.

"Uhhh, what do you want to know," Sam evades, shifting uncomfortably.

"What's she like?" Kate figures that's a good place to start before getting to what went wrong.

"Stubborn," Sam laughs. Then he sighs, and thinks a while before continuing. "She's… smart and brave. Persistent like a pitbull when she's clamped on to some idea and just won't let go. Sometimes a little reckless because she cares so damn much about… everyone. She drove me crazy at first, especially since on her first day she blew my cover just before I was finally going to bust Anton Hill."

Kate winces sympathetically at that one.

"She talks way too much most of the time, although I think she's made me allergic to silence now that she's gone. She's beautiful, well beautiful doesn't really cover it. She lights up a room when she's happy and breaks your heart when people let her down. She gets under my skin and makes me want to try not to be the last in a long line of people who let her down badly…"

"So why did you?" Kate asks softly.

Sam's eyes fly to Kate's, surprised by the question.

"I…" his throat closes up on him. He clears it and tries again, "I don't know," he finally says hoarsely, shoulders slumping. "I still can't quite make sense of it myself, let alone try to explain it to anyone. To her…" he trails of in frustration. He takes a gulp of his scotch before setting it down on the coffee table and leaning forward, elbows on his knees, running his hands agitatedly through his hair. Her patient but sharply assessing stare is unnerving him.

"Look, Kate. I appreciate your concern and your interest. But I don't think this is really going to help," he starts, deciding he's just not up to trying to confide in her. "You can tell Frank and Oliver that I'm fine, and they've got nothing to worry about, OK?"

Kate just stares at him for several minutes, debating. Finally, she decides not to push too much tonight, switches tactics instead. She's pretty sure some of her instincts about Sam are right. He's definitely changed.

"OK. For now," She finally agrees. "On one condition," she adds.

Sam raises his head, looks over with a raised brow. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to know what she'll ask of him.

"Help me out with the study we're launching," she asks.

Sam's jaw drops. Of all the things he thought she'd go for, help with _her_ work was not where he thought she was headed.

"Hear me out," she says shifting to face him more fully. "We've got a sophisticated new battery of testing developed and we need a few control subjects who have experienced a head injury within the last year that hasn't caused lasting effects. Ideally first responders who haven't been deployed in combat, but who do have physical, stressful jobs. It's really hard to find people who qualify. And you're the only one who I also have some baseline measures of some of the tests for comparison because of the help you gave me when I was freaked out and learning how to use all this high tech equipment and procedures in the first place.

Sam groans, "Seriously? You want me to go play guinea pig for you. Again? Kate, all that high tech stuff you work with totally sucks when you're the one being stuck in the machines. Haven't I paid my dues enough with you?"

"Sammy, please. This will be the last time, I swear. But I _really_ need you for this. Once we have this, you'll be our touchstone comparison case to measure data against for years to come. Please. Just say you'll do this, and I'll get Ollie and Frank off your back for a while," she puts all her charm behind her pitch.

Sam looks like he's going to hold out on her for the first time ever, so Kate decides to push a little harder.

"Come on, Sammy. It won't be that bad. What else have you got to do with your time right now? This girl you're all hung up on is away on assignment. And I'm much better at this now. We can do it all during one day off. It will be totally worth it to trade that one day for being left in peace by your concerned, nosy brothers in blue, right?"

"Ugh, fine. I'll do it just to shut you up right now. Jesus, why are all the women I know such relentless pains in the ass?" Sam slumps back against the couch, looking up at the ceiling in exasperated surrender. He looks over at her before adding, "But you owe me for this. More than just getting my so-called friends off my back," he grumbles.

"That's OK. I don't have a problem being in your debt," Kate says, plenty satisfied with her victory. She gets a text from Danny anyway, saying he's on his way over. So she figures she'll take what she can get on this first attempt to get through to him. Sam has always been a tough nut to crack when it comes to opening up about important things. Baby steps. It's not like their friendship was on all that solid ground these days anyway.

In fact, she figures it's probably a small miracle that he didn't fly completely off the handle when she made her request. He'd made it plenty clear when he helped her out of a panicked jam the first time that he was only doing for Sarah's sake. That Sarah was the only reason he was taking the high road and speaking to her at all after she dumped him. In return for letting her practice running all the tests from her dissertation study on him, he'd made her promise that she would stay in touch with Sarah and look after her when he took his first long-term undercover assignment. Not that she wouldn't have anyway, but Sam didn't need to know that.

Sam shakes his head. He can't believe he's actually agreeing to this. Again. He'd been floored that she had the nerve to call him to bail her out all those years ago. The _only_ reason he decided to just let things slide back into civility instead of cutting her off completely is that he didn't want to screw up Sarah having one close friend who knew her history. Sarah preferred to move on and start over without anyone in St. Catherine's knowing all her ugly baggage. But she needed a girlfriend to lean on, in those rare instances where something pushed her buttons. Especially when Sam wasn't around to answer the phone or drive up to see her.

Back then it had taken everything in him to pretend the hurt didn't cut too deep, and he was fine with calling the whole thing a mistake that he'd gotten over. It was what it was, and all that. But he'd done it for Sarah's sake, so she wouldn't feel like she had to take sides. Well, it had also sort of thrown him to see Kate actually rattled and unsure of herself and whether she could do something. That was a first.

Now he looks at Kate and realizes that she no longer ties his insides up in knots. She's as sexy as ever, hasn't aged much at all from how she looked when they'd both been of the force together. But none of those feelings that used to make his heart race were there at all anymore. Now he just wishes she was someone else. Andy has ruined him for other women. He thinks for the millionth time what an idiot Callaghan was to be tempted, let alone act on, the impulse to betray Andy revisiting an old disastrous love. What was that stupid stuff Jerry and Nash were always saying about elephants? Suddenly, Sam's exhausted. He's beyond relieved to hear Danny pull in up front so he doesn't have to deal with Kate any more tonight.

* * *

**AN: **OK, I lied about this one being longer. I decided to break it here because the mood is going to shift radically next time they see each other. Plus, it allowed me to post it sooner.


	11. Chapter 11: Busted

**Author's Note: ** Just want to warn you upfront that what's going on with Sam may still be a little confusing in this chapter. Things have to cool down a little before Kate will be able to really lay it all for him. So hang in there. As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. The feedback is definitely much appreciated!

**Chapter 11: Busted**

Suddenly, Sam's exhausted. He's beyond relieved to hear Danny pull in up front so he doesn't have to deal with Kate any more tonight.

* * *

A week later Sam is just starting to feel the pain pills start to ease the pounding in his head. As if the first grueling day being put through endless probing and exhausting batteries of mental tasks in Kate's swanky new lab a week ago wasn't enough, she talked him into coming back for a shorter follow up session today. (The clanging from the MRI machine was the worst. Not to mention how being in that tube for so long gave him a healthy dose of empathy for claustrophobics.)

He's jolted from a blessed bit of peace by someone pummeling his front door as if they want to murder the thing. Sam curses under his breath and hauls himself up from his couch, wondering who's got their panties in such a twist.

Before he has the door open more than a crack, Kate barrels through, practically knocking him off his feet and nearly taking the door off the hinges in the process.

"God damnit, Sammy! Are you completely insane? " she shouts, getting right up in his face. Her is own flushed scarlet, eyes flashing with fury.

"What the hell? Shouldn't you be _thanking_ me right about now?" Sam asks, stunned, and starting to get a little pissed off himself.

Kate just keeps coming at him, poking her finger into his chest as she slams the door and starts backing him into his living room. "We all knew you were hiding something, but I never imagined it could be this bad, that you could have been that stupid. You are going to come clean now, and you're going to come clean to me about _ALL_ of it. You are going to tell me exactly what Jamie Brennan did to you, not the bullshit fairy tale Disney version you put in your official report. So take a seat, this is going to take a while," she gives him a hard shove back into his couch to emphasize her words.

"Kate what the _hell_ are you taking about? Why are you bringing up Jamie Brennan now? How do you even know about official police business these days anyway?" he asks defensively.

Kate calms down a little, but shoots him a withering glance at that last comment. "Sammy, give me a break. You think no one told me about that? Stop trying to avoid the issue. Why did you whitewash what you went through so radically? Huh?" she demands.

"What makes you think I did?" Sam shoots back, crossing his arms in front of him defensively.

"I _know_ you did because I just spent the last four hours pouring over your latest scans and test results, Sam. Not only was there evidence of a second head injury that's nowhere in your report-and we'll get back to that later-but there was also massive soft tissue scarring in your nasal passages. You know who else has scans that look like that? Huh?"

Sam shakes his head mutely, starting to get a very bad feeling that he's been set up.

"Neither do 99.99% of medical specialists on the planet. None of them have ever seen this particular signature of trauma…because they don't have high enough security clearances to see scans of the type of people who have been through similar experiences," her accusatory gaze is drilling into him, pinning him to the couch.

"Because the only thing that causes damage like this is extensive water boarding, Sam. And not the do it once, carefully controlled kind of water boarding that some U.S. soldiers get during training. I'm talking about scans of terrorists stuck in Guantanamo Bay and the kind of dark sites that never make the news. Guys who were water boarded _dozens_ of times, Sam. So you need to start leveling with me. What the hell did Jamie Brennan do to you?" her eyes start to lose their heat and reflect pain.

"Is that what today was really about?" Sam asks in a controlled, dangerous voice.

"Partly," she admits.

"Did Frank put you up to this? And your idea of help was to trick me into thinking this was another favor for you so you could put me under a microscope and question my integrity and fitness on the job? Is that it?" he asks, voice starting to rise, as he jumps off the couch to confront her face to face.

"No! That's not what this is about!" she denies. "Sam, no one ever really thought you told the whole truth about what went on in that farm house. But they respect you, and they gave you the benefit of the doubt at first that the omissions were reasonable and let it slide. Today was about figuring out how serious the details you left out really were. It's not going into any official report… unless you clam up and keep denying everything."

"Why is this even your business, Kate?"

"Because I'm the only one qualified to help you! If you don't let me get involved, then something will have to get done through official channels. Frank and I are trying to protect you, Sammy, not throw you under the bus. He's taking a big risk doing things this way, and I'm not exactly following usual protocols either. So screw your stubborn pride, Sam. You don't have a choice any more about keeping this all swept under the rug and soldiering on by yourself as if nothing much happened to you," Kate declared, standing toe to toe with Sam, and matching him glare for glare. "You might not want to admit it, but PTSD is no joke, and you've been dealing with it in spades!"

"I owe you, Sam. I have a lot to make up for, and I know that civilian police forces don't have a clue about how to deal with situations like this properly. I know what you think about traditional therapy, and I actually don't blame you for wanting to do the minimum with the official department shrinks, OK? I get that. But leaving this much out of your official statements and keeping the physicians who examined you that night in the dark was stupid and dangerous, Sammy. Having them only monitor you for the obvious risks in the immediate hours after a what they thought was a run of the mill concussion from a single blow to the head…Argh, I can't even. How could you do that?" she shakes her head. "Did you ever tell _anyone_ the full story?" she asks on a broken half-sob. "I know you didn't tell Sarah, and since she left, I'm guessing you never told Andy either. Why?"

Sam drops his head and pinches the bridge of his nose, leaving the question hang. He tries to tamp down the anger pulsing through him at this latest manipulation and the accusations she's throwing at him, even if they are true. He looks up and says, "Kate, what exactly are you trying to corner me into saying here? That I'm fine about you lying so you can poke around my head uninvited? That I just can't wait to let you 'fix' me? Is that it?" he mocks.

"Maybe just the last part. I don't care if you forgive the pretext. We actually will use your results as a comparison case, by the way. That wasn't a complete excuse. But hate me if you want for not telling you in advance that I suspected you had hidden injuries that had gone undetected. I don't care. Because we both know if I had been upfront about it, you would never have gone anywhere near my labs. And if you have any senses of self-preservation at all, you will level with me and let me try to help you."

She softens her tone a bit, "Look, I know this must be scary. But what you're dealing with is much milder than most of the soldiers we see, and it seems that you've naturally compensated and rewired some of the damaged neural circuits. Some functions in some parts of the brain can do that pretty readily. That's probably why you didn't connect whatever changes you've experienced to the blows to your head.

But there is evidence of some lingering effects. Once you've calmed down, I'll try to explain exactly what appears to be going on in your brain. You can tell me how you've been experiencing things subjectively. We have some very effective protocols, and I've already started to adapt them for you. We should get you back to nearly 100%. But it takes sustained effort and commitment. Frank can have you assigned temporarily to our team as an expert consultant. No one will have to know were treating you for anything. We can keep those details strictly off the books. But you have to be willing to do it and take it seriously."

"And if I say no?" Sam asks, rocking back on his heels and crossing his arms to eye her through narrowed eyes.

"Then Frank will have no choice. He'll have to act through official channels. You'll be left to the mercy of the white shirts' hacks of choice to decide your fate, and trust me, they don't have a clue about whether any of this affects your ability to be a great cop. But they are awfully afraid of law suits." Kate answers without batting an eye. "Your choice. Pick your poison."

When Sam just tries to stare her down and refuses to break the silence, she continues, "Sam, this isn't going to hold back your career. Frank actually wants to offer you a really cool slot as a detective. No suits required. But not until you get past this little hurdle. Please say yes to this. I'm really good at this. I've already worked with two guys with similar injuries. All I'm going to do is give you some insight about why certain things have become more difficult and help you accelerate and improve the coping strategies you've already been using. That's all it is," she smiled reassuringly. "Think it over tonight, and I'll come back tomorrow to explain things further, OK?"

Sam gives a jerky nod and motions to the door, "Show yourself out," is all he says.

Kate sighs, but does as he asks. There's no use trying to say more tonight.

* * *

**AN: **A couple notes on the medical stuff. I actually don't know what kind of permanent soft tissue damage there is from water boarding or whether you could pick it up definitively in MRI or CAT scans. So that part you have to just have to suspend disbelief and go with.

There will be more details about Sam's head injury to come. I'll keep as realistic as possible without getting too wonky. The specifics will mostly fit with how Sam actually acted in season 3. (i.e., It's not severe brain damage, just partial disruption of a few types thought linked a real brain area in the prefrontal cortex)


	12. Chapter 12: Old Wounds

**Author's Note: **This chapter is about the two of them really starting to make peace with the past before they can agree to work on Sam's current problems. As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. The feedback is definitely much appreciated!

**Chapter 12: Old Wounds**

"Think it over tonight, and I'll come back tomorrow to explain things further, OK?"

Sam gives a jerky nod and motions to the door, "Show yourself out," is all he says.

Kate sighs, but does as he asks. There's no use trying to say more tonight.

* * *

Sam takes a deep breath and braces himself for another confrontation before opening his front door the next morning.

Kate waves a bag from his favorite Jewish deli, the only place from their old neighborhood either one of them ever went back to visit. "Peace offering?" she offers with a tentative smile. "You know no one else makes bagels quite like old man Morti."

"Is he still alive? I'd have thought his screw up son would've taken over and ruined the place by now," Sam replied, the merest hint of an ironic smile lifting one side of his lips.

"Please," Kate waves that off. "He'll breathe his last breath in that deli, and he'll probably outlive most of the punks who used to tempt fate making fun of him. Has a new guard dog now though, another German Shephard….But he still tells the dumb kids he used to feed the dog any Nazis who dared set foot on his farm in the old country" she rolls her eyes.

Sam shakes his head, remembering the crazy tall tales Morti used to tell to play with the heads of local punks who made trouble in his place. He, Kate, and Sarah used to get a thrill out of being the only kids in the neighborhood who weren't afraid of that dog. Mostly because Kate always strutted right up to him without fear, as if even a dog would know better than to bite a Connolly. Sam rolls his own eyes, but steps back to let her in.

* * *

"Look, Sam, I'm sorry I flipped out and handled things so badly yesterday. It just drove me crazy to think you brushed the whole thing off so casually. It's too risky to be all stubbornly stoic and self-reliant about things like this. Please don't dig in your heels further just because lost my cool," Kate pleads.

Sam sighs, "I don't forgive you yet, and I'm not saying you're even right. But…maybe I'm willing to hear you out about what you think you turned up."

"OK," Kate breathes, relieved. "Okay, that's a start," she smiles tentatively. "Why don't we get a refill of coffee and move into the living room?"

After they settle into the couch, Kate coaxes, "Sammy, before we get into anything else, tell me what really happened that night. "You know, Brennan started out training under my father's enforcer. They got rid of him because he was too much of a loose canon. "But if he retained anything of what he learned, what he came at you with most was psychological manipulation, not the gruesome stuff that shows up in the police reports of those he killed. That's the way it's done where you're after actual information, not just sending a message. He probably spent most of his time in the first few hours trying to find your tells and zeroing in on what, or rather who, is your soft spot. Creating fear and panic and causing pain is done selectively and escalated slowly, mostly so you can imagine vividly the same thing being inflicted on someone else you care for. Does that sound about right?" she asks softly.

"Yes," Sam admits hoarsely, starting to fidget as the memories came flooding back. "I blurted out a question about Andy as soon as I came to. At least I kept a clear enough head to use her cover name, but of course I tipped my hand about caring more about her than my asshole cover persona would have. Brennan didn't waste time letting me know he'd made me and what gave it away anyway. I think he wanted to know right away whether I was in on the original cover up of his wife's murder or just covering for whoever did it. Probably to know how rough to get, I don't know." Sam shrugged.

"He definitely thought I knew more than I did though. He uh, he did water board me. Not dozens of times though. Ten times. With plenty of time in between shivering in that old abandoned farm house to wear me down, leave me thinking about each latest doubt and fear he'd planted in my head. Mostly he played on my anger at my handler and contradictory stories about McNally and whether he had her on ice someplace in case he got nowhere with me." Sam paused, swallowing thickly.

"I…I almost broke and gave up Donny's name, especially when he started coming at me with the hammer. I knew I had to do something because the next time he used it, he'd hit my kneecap squarely, and I'd probably never walk again. But then I decided to make one last play to try to get free before my strength was gone. So I goaded him into losing his temper by going after _his_ soft spot, his guilt about his family. I got lucky and he did go for the personal satisfaction of a punch to the face that knocked my chair over and allowed me to break one of the arms loose.

While he was gone getting his temper back under control, I freed myself and grabbed a shovel. But… when he came back I guess I didn't hit him quite hard enough to knock him out. I held my own fighting with one useless hand…until he got his hands on a crowbar and got in a good shot to my head. He had the upper hand after that. He got a solid head lock on me. I think I was about to black out when Ollie came through the door and drew on him. God, I've never been so glad to anyone. I'm pretty sure Brennan was ready to just kill me and be done with it at that point."

Kate grabs his hand and gives it a squeeze. "Jesus, Sammy. You should have just hung that reckless rat bastard Boyd out to dry," she mutters.

"I might have if I thought Brennan would actually let me walk out of there alive. But I needed to play things out long enough to try to get a fix on whether he was bluffing about having McNally or if he really had let her go anyway. I don't know, it seemed like I played it the best way I could at the time. The water boarding wasn't that bad once I figured out that he thought I had information that was really important to him that he thought he could get out of me if he wore me down enough," Sam shrugs again, still uncomfortable about making a big deal about it. "I knew he wasn't going to be careless enough to kill me with that when he thought he still might get me to talk."

"Sam, you were held for more than a day in the middle of nowhere by a sadist playing mind games with you, torturing you with a technique that's guaranteed to trigger panic reactions, almost certainly while you were suffering from a concussion and on the brink of hypothermia. That's before we even get to the part where he starts pulling out tools to start getting really brutal. It's not something you can just shrug off and tell yourself not to dwell on. Especially when it all happened because someone you trusted was unforgivably sloppy. Boyd's lucky I wasn't around at the time, or Frank coming down hard on him would have been the least of his worries," Kate mutters darkly.

"Look, Sammy, I can maybe understand where you were coming from leaving out the water boarding in order to duck the inevitably more intense work with department shrinks they would have required. It's still stupid to be so resistant, but I get it. What I don't get is why you didn't tell anyone else. Why didn't you at least tell Andy?" she asks softly.

"I…because. Because she was already blaming herself, and none of it was her fault. I didn't want her to…" he cuts himself off and sighs. "She didn't have anything to do with what happened," he repeated firmly. "She's the only reason they even found me, and she was beating herself up enough as it was. She was the one who noticed the bogus accident report that I should have caught myself. I missed both that and the amateur mistake with the seized boat. That bust happened when I was undercover working Hill. But I should have caught both things.

Something bothered me about the assignment from the start, but I shrugged off my instincts and let Boyd talk me into agreeing and going along when he moved up the time frame. I didn't do the kind of prep I should have getting ready for that type of high risk assignment. That's on me. Andy had never done any undercover work for more than a few hours at a time, and she still managed to keep her cover in the face of definite suspicions on Brennan's part. That's the only reason he didn't work her over as well. _I'm_ the one who knew just how risky starting things up while I was under was, not her. But I still did it. So any consequences were on me to deal with, OK?" Sam says defensively.

"No, Sam. It's not OK. It takes two to tango. You were supposedly trying to be serious with her, right? I can tell this wasn't like your usual intentionally shallow so-called 'relationships' that you used to choose carefully because you knew they'd end in six months or less. You say you don't want to let her down and that Andy's had a rough, disappointing past. Well, so have you! She's not made of glass, Sam. What the hell is the point of being with her if you're going to completely shut her out and leave her in the dark about something like this? You think that's protecting her? It's not. You've made such a fetish out self-sufficiency you really have no idea how extreme you've become, do you? Granted, she must not be the most perceptive girl in the world to not have figured it out, but I'm sure she sensed _something_, Sam. All you did is left her to fill in the blanks on her own as to why you were acting differently. Secrets like this never end well," Kate adds, the urgency starting to trail off as she catches the resentment flaring in Sam's eyes.

"_I'm_ extreme? I'd say you're speaking from experience, aren't you?" Sam snorts.

"Sam…" Kate starts, not sure what to say.

"No, I actually finally want to say this, now that the subject has come up," Sam jumps up and starts pacing. He throws an accusing glance at her before continuing, "Because you know damn well that Andy wasn't the first woman I tried to have something real with. I might have waited to do something about it until you announced you were leaving the force and moving away to study at McGill. But you blindsided me with those plans after sending signals that I wasn't imagining that maybe you were starting to see me as something more than Sarah's little brother.

So I put myself out there. I asked you to think about staying and studying at the Univ. of Toronto instead. I picked the grand gesture and said let's go off on vacation together, even flew the last connection in a rickety commuter plane to get to your favorite spot on Antigua, even though flying is probably the closest thing to a phobia I have, so that we could give it a shot and you would maybe see that we could be something that was worth changing plans for.

I put everything I had into winning you over. Jumped in like an overeager puppy dog. And you seemed to be on board with it all. We had a fantastic week together, or at least I thought so. Then the day after I said I loved you, you used the excuse of wanting a girl's day of shopping to just take off, just fly back early without me. I came back excited from a great day doing a resort scuba dive, and you were gone, leaving just a _note_ saying you didn't think it would last after all. That our family history was just too complicated and it was better to make a clean break.

You're not a flighty woman, Kate. It took me a while to think it through and realize that. But whatever the reason was that you changed your mind, you broke things off in a way that was designed to make me hate you. I'm sure in your mind there was some perfectly 'logical' rationalization in which you thought you were protecting me. So don't you dare presume to tell me now that you haven't kept plenty of secrets yourself. Or that your haven't made unilateral decisions in the name of protecting someone.

Maybe I was wrong not to tell McNally what really happened. Maybe I would have told her if she hadn't caved to the white shirt rules 'punishing' us and taken off for Temagami after spending one night with me on concussion watch. I don't know.

And maybe it was a mistake not to tell her when she got back. But it seemed like old news by then. I thought I was fine. The main thing was on my mind at the time was trying not to feel abandoned all over again. Looking back, most of the mistakes I made with her was overcompensating in trying not to end up in the same spot you left me, Kate. I never even told her I loved her until after I'd blown up our entire relationship after watching Jerry bleed out on some psycho's floor. I couldn't say it back to her when we were still together. I couldn't push the words out of my mouth until weeks after I'd ended things and I was watching her try not to panic while she was holding onto a freaking hand grenade thanks to another psychotic pedophile. But by then, it was too little, too late."

Sam gives a harsh, humorless laugh, "You're so twisted up into the wrong moves I made with McNally anyway, maybe it's some perfect cosmic joke that you end up being the only one who's supposed to have insight on how my brain is so scrambled up that I can't think straight anymore. So I'll sit down and hear you out. But I need a little time to try to get some distance on the whole thing. Why don't you come back after lunch?" he suggests in a resigned voice, his typical Swarek mask back in place.

Kate sits with tears streaming freely down her face. She'd known all that emotional fallout, buried and left unsaid for so long would inevitably finally bubble to the surface if she tried to get through to Sammy. But hearing him finally put into words how badly she'd hurt him was so much harder than she'd imagined. She was pretty wrecked by it, honestly.

"OK," she finally whispers. "I'll be back around 1:00pm. I'm sorry, Sammy. I did try to make you hate me. I thought you'd be better off angry than heart broken."

"Kate, you just ended up making me both," he sighs. "But it was a long time ago. I'm a grown up, and my relationship, what I feel for Andy is nothing like how things were with you. It's my own fault letting an irrelevant past and my own ego get in the way. Let's just stick with the present when you come back, OK?"

Kate nods and leaves without attempting any more useless explanations. She can't say more anyway without dredging up a whole Pandora's Box worth of problems. Those secrets she won't divulge unless Sam really needs those truths to move forward.. and seems stable enough not to be as reckless about going to war to right past wrongs as everyone always feared he would be.

* * *

**AN: **I decided to do this emotional confrontation before they get to the point where they can start discussing the medical stuff. So you were all spared that discussion for now.


	13. Chapter 13: Ghosts of Betrayals Past

**Author's Note: **I decided to split this chapter so I could post at least this much today. One of the readers most into this story is going away for several months to a place with limited internet, so I wanted to make sure she had a little something more to read. As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. The feedback is definitely much appreciated!

**Chapter 13: Ghosts of Betrayals Past**

Kate nods and leaves without attempting any more useless explanations. She can't say more without dredging up a whole Pandora's Box worth of problems. Those secrets she won't divulge unless Sam really needs those truths to move forward.. and seems stable enough not to be as reckless about going to war to right past wrongs as everyone always feared he would be.

* * *

Memories of how she'd felt on that day came flooding back. Kate had been about to go spend a ridiculous amount on new lingerie and sexy new dress for that night when her mother swept through the front door determined to throw cold water on any illusions about throwing caution to the wind and chasing the crazy dream that this could have a future. Of course she did. Kate should have known the leash only stretched so far.

Still, she'd been shocked to have been tracked down, "What are you doing here, mother?"

"You really think I would just sit by and let a disaster unfold? Kate, I've warned you about Sam before. You're my youngest child, my only daughter. I love you dearly, and I made sure you always got everything important you ever wanted. Freedom to break from the rest of the family, even your father's blessing to become a detective and a promise not to ask you to compromise yourself so long as you stayed out of investigating organized crime. You've grown into a strong, brilliant woman, and I couldn't be more proud of you. But I'm not sure you have ever entirely outgrown all of your more selfish impulses.

You hated the testosterone-fueled power dynamics that rule our corner of the city. So your idea of rebelling was to turn your hated position as the daughter of the local power broker on its head. You used your beauty and the fact that you were untouchable to mercilessly tease every boy in the neighborhood, louts and solid kids alike. You never listened when I warned you against playing with fire. I know you've outgrown those shallow teen aged ways, and this is entirely different. But you know Sam's mother would have been adamantly opposed to this if she was still alive…"

Kate snorted, "Probably. The only reason she tolerated Sarah hanging out with me was protection. Look, Sam's mom was a lovely person, and I get why she wasn't my biggest fan. But he sacrificed more than enough for her already. Is that supposed to continue beyond the grave too?"

"No, and I know better than anyone the toll her pride took. I did everything I could to make things easier for him as a kid. But there was only so much I could do behind the scenes. You know she would never take anything from me, no matter how hard that made it on her kids. I made arrangements with their landlord to cover half their rent, made sure Sam and Sarah got scholarships to the Catholic school, made sure they were placed in good foster home with people who were much more willing to take money from me. I even sent Father Michael on a mission to straighten him out…"

"Yes, yes, mom. I know all that. You were a regular secret fairy Godmother. Everyone in the family was well aware that the Swarek kids were your little pet project. I'm sure it eased your conscience greatly," Kate mocked. "But I just see them as the two best people I know."

"Actually, it didn't. Some things can never be made right. But this time you must take my advice… Kate, darling, I'm sorry, but a serious romantic entanglement with Sam Swarek is out of the question. There are some ugly truths I had hoped to spare you, but I can see that's no longer possible. These are things I think it's best Sam not know, for his own sake. Being friends and colleagues was one thing. But love? No, you have to give him up and break this off for good."

Then her mother had proceeded to gently, but relentlessly pull back the curtain on the harsher facts about how the Connollys had maintained their position at the pinnacle of mafia power. Reeling from all the new skeletons in the closet, the full truth about the ways Sam's family had become collateral damage in the process, Kate had readily agreed to fly home with her mother. She couldn't face Sam anyway, and back then she had thought continuing to shield him from it all was the right thing to do…

Kate shakes herself back to the present. Whatever her regrets about leaving so abruptly, it's not that she thinks she made the wrong decision to end things. She had loved Sam, but Danny is truly the love of her life, and she suspects Andy is the same for Sam. She's just not as sure anymore whether they were all right to keep Sam in the dark. Regardless, first she needs to make sure he's back on track, that neither what Jamie Brennan nor she herself had done to him was continuing to screw up his life. Then all those painful questions about truth and lies she'd tried to put to rest might be worth rethinking.

She pulls herself together to drive back to Sam's. For once, she's going to make sure he gives as much attention to his own well being as he's always given to taking care of everyone else.

* * *

**AN: **I promise I'll start actually revealing more soon. The nature of the brain injury first, the secret Connolly/Swarek family past will take a little longer. But I'll get there.


	14. Chapter 14: Clearing the Air

**Author's Note: **Since a few people have asked, I'm going to share a couple thoughts about Kate. I see Kate as definitely an ambiguous character, so no one should feel bad if they have negative or mixed feelings about her. For one thing, I'm a McSwarek shipper, so I can't create a past love interest who's clearly better than Andy. ;) (I know one or two readers who are really down on Andy were maybe hoping for that, but sorry no) So Kate's neither a villain (Sam did love her once, so she has redeeming qualities) nor an alternative present love interest. She's mainly intended to be an important influence with unique personal and technical knowledge for Sam to do that changing and growing Oliver was pushing him to do.

Also, I know many miss Andy, but Sam has to be in the right place for a reunion to have a chance at success first. So, patience on that front. As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. The feedback is definitely much appreciated!

**Chapter 14: Clearing the Air**

She pulls herself together to drive back to Sam's. For once, she's going to make sure he gives as much attention to his own well being as he's always given to taking care of everyone else.

* * *

"Oh look, the Miracle Worker returneth," Sam slurs, leaning unsteadily against his front door jamb.

Kate takes a shocked step back as the tequila fumes hit her, eyes dropping to the white knuckled grasp Sam has around the neck of half-empty Patron bottle. She gets the distinct impression he'd rather be wringing her neck.

Kate crosses her arms and raises a brow, "Really, Sammy? Liquid lunch? That's your idea of taking some time to cool off and put the past to rest?"

"S'my idea of the _best_ way to kill time til you came back. Cuz I sorta changed my mind 'bout being ready to drop the subject, Kate Connnnollllly," Sam rakes his eyes over her as he draws out her name contemptuously before lifting his arm to take a swig straight from the bottle.

Kate lunges forward to stop him. But Sam is a little more agile than she expected. He steps back and slips his arm from her grasp. The motion causes him to slop a large dollop on his shirt though.

"Yeah, thanks for that," Sam complains, setting the bottle on a cabinet in a nook around the corner from the door, well out of her reach. He wipes at the wet mess for a second before stripping the shirt off and launching it down the hall toward his laundry room. "You want some, you gotta ask me for it."

Kate eyes his bare chest and raises an brow at that unintended double entendre, "You wanna rephrase that?" she smirks.

And that right there really seems to set him off. He reaches around her to slam the door shut with enough force to make her jump a little.

"That's hilarious. It's the one thing you've never had to ask for, have you? You're not shy about asking anything under the sun of every besotted guy who crosses your path though. Tell me, Kate, have you ever met a man who wouldn't trade his left arm for just the possibility your come ons actually would lead somewhere?"

"You think that joke was a come on? I was trying to get you to see that this situation, having this conversation when you're drunk is a bad idea," Kate counters.

"Oh _that's _what it was about?" Sam mocks. "Cuz it sounded a little to me like you were the one bringing sexual innuendo into the picture when what I wanted was a little more explanation about ancient history." Sam steps closer, "What's the matter? Afraid you're not as unaffected as you thought?"

And just for a second, Kate has to admit he's maybe not entirely wrong. It seems the fact that their romance _is_ ancient history, and they've both moved on doesn't entirely eliminate all the attraction she feels for him after all. The admission rocks her, and drunk as he is, she can tell Sam reads the emotions in her eyes. She sees his own register surprise, and then smug satisfaction.

"It doesn't feel so great to be Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls away the football, does it?" Sam asks, before drunkenly swaggering off to grab a clean shirt. Kate pivots and shoots an unseen eye roll at his back. OK, maybe he deserved to get that payback. Still, she can't help noting the man still has a world class ass, so she's going to have to draw some serious boundaries and ground rules or this is going to blow up in her face. This attempt at redemption, penance, friendly concern, whatever you want to call it, cannot turn into anything more.

Sam wanders back in, new shirt in place, but messed up hair indicating it maybe took a bit of a struggle to get it there. All of a sudden the resentful, unbidden sexual sparks are gone, and Kate just feels a rush of affection for Sam. Even when he's pissed off and hurt, he never takes revenge too far. It's the bedrock decency of the guy under his abrasive exterior that has always been what she loved most about him. "I think it's best that I just get you some water, start some new coffee, fix you a sandwich, and leave you to sober up on your own," Kate declares.

"Sure, why not? Everyone's always better off leaving me," Sam gives an exaggerated shrug.

That…grabs her attention. She's never heard Sam actually voice that kind of self pity, drunk or not. "What do you mean by everyone?" she asks curiously.

Sam shrugs again. "Everyone. I thought the family being split up was a disaster, but Mom and Sarah got better without me to worry about…"

"Is that what you thought?" Kate asks, stunned and horrified. "Sammy, your family was under incredible stress before Child Protective Services stepped in, but none of it came from you. You were the only one holding things together, the only bright spot in their lives when things were at the worst. Your mom and Sarah were wearing themselves out battling with each other over home schooling and what Sarah needed to truly pull herself together again. Maybe they did feel some guilt about how much they leaned on you. But they actually didn't worry about you nearly enough, in my opinion. They just adored you and leaned on you, and let you take way too much burden for propping everything up.

You _weren't_ responsible for making them happy. It's good that you finally realized that. But all those years of trying did make a difference. They might not have been able to show it they way they should, but you were the only thing that kept the two of them from completely unraveling." She pauses as the doubt and resistance to what she was saying started to fade a little from his eyes. "Come on, sit down while I make you some food."

Sam sighs, the fight seeming to finally drain out of him. He takes a seat and thinks through what she'd said as she puts her limited kitchen skills to work throwing together a decent sandwich from his well stocked refrigerator. He always was much better with that kind of domestic stuff than she ever was. When she sets the plate with the sandwich in front of him, he grabs her wrist.

"Why did you do it?" he asks quietly. "I know it wasn't just another round of Lucy with the football. But why did you really leave that day? Did I just rush things?"

"No. If anything, you'd left everything so late, I was inclined to believe you didn't really mean it." Kate sigh, "Sam, before you invited me on that trip you had always only dated women you knew weren't really interested in you. Maybe I'm starting to understand why a little bit. But regardless, you never showed interest in any of the cool women who really dug you. You always only saw badge bunnies or gold diggers, women who wanted a short term thrill before moving on to someone else to settle down. I believed you felt differently about me, but part of me did wonder if you only took a chance because you knew I'd already made other life plans. Maybe I just wanted to believe that after I decided to leave and you made it out to be no big deal later," she shrugs.

"But when I agreed to go away with you, I hoped it was more than that. Trust me, it had been a very long time since I looked at you and saw Sarah's little brother. And that week was as real for me as it seemed. I didn't leave because you were over eager. Quite the opposite. You completely swept me off my feet. When you said you loved me, I was ready to say yes to everything. To studying in Toronto and trying to make it work long term," Kate stops to draw a ragged breath. "But then my mother showed up."

Kate paused again, searching for the right words. "Sammy, you and I both grew up in families that told us all kinds of lies and half-truths. Families that had more taboo subjects than any kid should have to deal with. But neither one of us had any idea how far down the rabbit hole the messy connections between our families really went. Don't ask me to explain what she told me now, please. But she convinced me that you and I would be swallowed up in black hole if we let our feelings go any further. I told myself I was protecting you, but maybe I was just as afraid of getting sucked back into my family's gravitational pull myself.

Either way, Sammy, we're both better off moving on and being with people who aren't connected to any of that ugliness. Just, please don't let what happened make you gun shy about putting yourself out there again. It might not have lasted, but you did make me wish all those barriers didn't exist. So badly. And it took me a really long time to get over you. But I finally did, and Danny is not someone I settled for. He's everything to me. He's amazing in his own right, and I'm still discovering new things about him that make me love him even more. But between you and me, that first attraction I felt for him was more than a little based on things that reminded me of you."

Sam had been staring at his hand encircling her wrist, not wanting to make any move that would cut off what he figured would be the one and only conversation opening a window into a past that had shadowed him more than he cared to admit. But his eyes flew up in shock to meet hers at that last admission.

"You mattered to me. You still matter to me. And you proved that some of that old attraction hasn't disappeared. But I won't fall in love with you again, nor would I ever cheat on Danny." Kate waves down his objection, "I know that's not what you intended. I'm just saying that I still want to help you, but you have to decide whether that's what you want…and whether you can respect that things are complicated for me. Don't push buttons again just to score points, or I won't be able to do this." Kate uses her free hand to remove his from her wrist, giving his hand a quick squeeze before turning to leave.

"Come by my office tomorrow if you can live with that, and we'll go over your test results," she adds before walking out the front door.

* * *

**AN: **OK, I have to give some credit for this chapter to a twitter conversation I had with evelinav last night. It was her idea to take a little detour with a drunk, angry/frustrated Sam and to throw a few angry sparks between these two into the mix before they move on to the medical rehab angle. I'd planned on the partial explanation from Kate about why she left to happen in this chapter, but to play out a little differently. And though I still don't want this to be a triangle love story in any way, once we started talking about the idea, I decided to run with it. Hope the McSwarek shippers won't be too upset by it.


	15. Chapter 15: All Shook Up

**Author's Note: **OK, this chapter finally gets to the medical stuff. Hopefully, it's not too dry or hard to follow. As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. The feedback is definitely much appreciated!

**Chapter 15: All Shook Up**

I'm just saying that I still want to help you, but you have to decide whether that's what you want…and whether you can respect that things are complicated for me. Don't push buttons again just to score points, or I won't be able to do this." Kate uses her free hand to remove his from her wrist, giving his hand a quick squeeze before turning to leave.

"Come by my office tomorrow if you can live with that, and we'll go over your test results," she adds before walking out the front door.

* * *

"My turn for a peace offering?" Sam asks, leaning against her office door jamb with a self-deprecating apologetic grin.

"Sure," Kate smiles, noting that he chose one of her more recent favorite pastry shops rather than the childhood nostalgia of Morti's. A signal that he wasn't going to push her to get into the past she'd alluded to, she hopes. "Have a seat on the couch," she invites, taking the box from him. She joins him and takes a deep breath, suddenly worried how he'll take everything.

"OK, first let me say that you're going to be fine. Just understanding what you've been dealing with will probably be half the battle, and I think I can get you back to close to 100%. The things that have turned up have probably affected your personal life more than anything. You're a great cop. The only real issue professionally is whether you're ready to take on any major new assignments like this detective position Frank thinks might be right for you."

Sam laughs nervously, and says, "Don't worry about soft pedaling things. Just hit me with it, Kate. I'm ready. I think," he rolls his eyes.

"Alright. Well, there are probably several ways that you haven't been feeling like yourself that are due to a combination of residual psychological effects of your ordeal with Brennan and more recent events like losing Jerry, and things falling apart with Andy and to physical trauma caused specifically by the blows to the head. We're really lucky in your case to have pretty detailed prior baselines to compare things to, but because it's so long after the initial primary traumatic event, there are a lot of messy feedback loops that probably took place that make cause and effect impossible to disentangle. There's also indications that you were probably in worse shape in a few specific capacities right after this happened and have recovered a lot on your own. But I can only make informed guesses about that."

Sam nods to show Kate he's following her so far. He's certain he'll get lost in a blizzard of psycho-babble and technical jargon any minute though.

"Alright, to start with, let's talk about evidence of psychological effects. There are some differences in your amygdala, which is a small bean shaped area in the interior of your brain. There's no way any of the blows to the head affected it's function, so the changes are due to events you've experienced. What that region is specialized to do is detect threats and trigger flight or fight responses. It operates mostly unconsciously and causes you to shift conscious attention to whatever stimuli triggers it. This is a basic survival-oriented critical brain region. Now, you've always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie who thrives on a little danger. So the spikes in activity caused by the sorts of things that are supposed to make this little bugger fire used to drop off more quickly than in your average person. It's part of what's always helped you stay cool under fire and be a go-to guy on the force for dangerous assignments.

That area is currently actually physically slightly bigger than it was in your baseline scans, and when we watch blood flow spikes in reaction to classic fear/startle stimuli, they're not returning back to normal as quickly as they used to. You're pretty close to a normal range now, but that enlarged size means this region has probably been overactive relative to your personal norm for a long time. So you've probably been _feeling_ more anxious and on edge and alert to danger than you used to.

The dopamine-based reward circuits of your brain on the other hand are showing decreased responsiveness, both in magnitude and in the length of time good feelings persist. It's not the profile of someone who's severely depressed, but it's noticeably different from your prior baseline. That may be due to grief and recent events. You're naturally still feeling the loss of your best friend and bummed that things got off course with Andy. But I suspect for at least a while, you probably also had a similar response after the Brennan ordeal. Maybe you were just starting to feel highs again as fully as you used to when that terrible day with Jerry came along to blind side you. The various bio-chem tests we ran seem to back up that you've been in a fairly long-term state of stress and low grade depression.

This altered emotional state just happened to coincide with starting an important, serious new romantic relationship with someone you work with closely in a risky, high-stress job. That would be a tricky new thing to manage for anyone, under any circumstances, let alone someone with your background and life experiences. So all the crazy, wonderful, maddening feelings that new love brings are coinciding with and being filtered through this confusing chronic state of not feeling quite yourself, whether you were aware of or willing to acknowledge the fact or not. So I'm guessing the euphoria you experienced when you and Andy hooked up undercover was a little muted once she came back after it all went to hell. And it probably felt like all the inevitable complications and stresses probably were getting to you more than you thought they would. Any of this sound like I'm on the right track?" Kate asked, gently.

"Yes," Sam whispered hoarsely.

"OK," Kate said, giving his hand an encouraging squeeze. "So far that's what you expect from relatively straightforward PTSD. You're a bit dismissive of that sort of thing because you've always been an extremely resilient person. So it after the first month or so, it probably never even occurred to you to link how you were feeling to continued fallout from having been tortured. But now we get to the unique complicating factor. It looks like at least one of those blows to the head caused damage that disrupted the usual tight linkages between a couple important adjacent areas of the brain.

The first area is called the posterior Medial Frontal Cortex. That's a mouthful, so we call it the pMFC and it does a couple things. It gets activated when you're in situations that present conflicting signals or pressures about how to behave before you make choices. After you've taken action, it's also the place that detects changes in emotional states that signal whether you're getting desired results from your actions. Did it turn out as expected? Did the anticipated reward materialize? Which basically means, did you get the dopamine spike you expected for success in some given situation. Whenever the answer is no, the neurons in the pMFC start firing. Basically, it's where it dawns on you that you might or you did screw something up. That includes being mistaken in expecting someone else to be reasonable, not just knowing when you personally have made a mistake or behaved badly, by the way. All of this is independent of morality or blame. It's about awareness of when reality differs from expectations.

It's very connected to another area called the lateral prefrontal cortex, or LPFC. That's the area where you put things in perspective, where you connect causes and effects and figure if, when, and how you need to alter your behavior to get the results you'd hoped for. Or decide you need to adjust your expectations or just feel hurt and/or angry. The signaling between these areas goes both ways. So you were dealing with two potential problems. The dopamine system input was likely muted for a while, and then some of the signaling among critical areas that normally rely on that input were disrupted as well from the head injury.

But here's the good news. There's a fair amount of neural plasticity to this type of thinking within the frontal cortex. In your case, the fMRI showed that adjacent brain areas are starting to show activation when we give you tasks where success and failure are thrown at you to pick up the slack from the damaged region. So basically that means your brain started rewiring itself to regain lost capacity for this type of reasoning. You're performing at about 85% as well as you used to. This is just an estimate, but right after Brennan clubbed you over the head with a crow bar, you might have been down to as much as 70% or so of your normal level. This was one of your strengths, being in touch with your famous Swarek gut, and you were on suspension for a while. So everyone probably wrote off any differences they noted to irritability over being punished for Boyd's mistakes. But anyway, you were undoubtedly struggling more with this kind of adaptive thinking. You were still able to sense when things weren't going quite right, but with less capacity to figure out why and what to do about it, especially in situations that were unfamiliar."

Kate pauses to let all of that sink in before adding softly, "For instance, what to make of the fact that Andy left town, or how to make sense of how you felt about it and what to do when she got back. To a lesser extent as time passed and the rewiring progressed, that would extend right on down to what to make of little arguments and disappointments once you got past that hurdle. Figuring out how to react to all the little emotionally charged surprises that are always a part of a new relationship had to have been more of a struggle than it would have been otherwise. On some days, it must have been exhausting. It's not surprising that you hit a wall when you were blindsided by Jerry's death. There's only so many powerful, conflicting emotions that you could cope with before getting completely overloaded. Sammy, you might not have known exactly why, but you were right to finally recognize you were in a situation where you needed some space to pause and regroup before you could think things through."

Sam let out a long sigh, staring at the ceiling while he tried to take it all in. Suddenly, he felt an unexpected rush of relief. He'd been so confused about why juggling work and relationship roles had seemed so much more difficult and complicated than he'd expected. And why the magic between them when they were JD and Candace never seemed to be quite the same. When the occasional doubt about whether he was really cut out for the serious boyfriend thing sneaked in, he'd felt panicked and guilty. And he'd been afraid she'd read it in his eyes. He knew he loved her, and when he asked her to try to be normal, he was sure he was ready for this, that he wouldn't let her down. The way he was feeling just didn't make sense to him. So he'd ducked serious conversations and had left most mornings, even though he knew Andy wanted some extra lazy time together, especially when they weren't on early shifts. Having a _reason_ for what he was feeling was such a relief, he didn't care about the rest. He's sure whatever aggravating mental exercises or other therapies Kate has come up with probably would work. Now that there was something that actually made sense to fix, he'd do whatever it takes to get himself the rest of the way back to feeling whole again.

* * *

**AN: **A few medical notes. The brain areas mentioned are real, and more or less have the functions briefly described here. (I simplified, but not that much) But there are a few things about which I took liberties, and you have to suspend disbelief:

1) You have to ignore that Sam was actually hit in the back of the head.

2) Even if he took the hit to the area where the pMFC and LPFC are, blunt force trauma probably wouldn't selectively impair those areas because they're not right on the surface of the frontal cortex. It would probably take a stroke or possibly a gun shot wound to create this kind of functional impairment

3) The neural plasticity of these functions and certainly the rate/degree it's suggested Sam could bounce back are purely speculative

Also, this whole angle about Sam experiencing more fallout from the Brennan thing absolutely does NOT mean I think Sam was mainly to blame for McSwarek flaming out. Just because I'm writing a speculative story that gives one possible explanation for some of the things he did in season 3 doesn't mean I think Andy never behaved in weird and/or annoying ways.


	16. Chapter 16: Confessions

**Author's Note: **Glad all the techie jargon in the last chapter didn't put most people off too much. That one small dose should be all that's needed to support the main premise of the story. Once again, I also got a kick out of the various opinions about Sam and Andy that continue to reverberate from season 3. The kind words about what I've done with the story and the strong opinions about the characters are all definitely much appreciated! So, as always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far.

**Chapter 16: Confessions**

Having a _reason_ for what he was feeling was such a relief, he didn't care about the rest. He's sure whatever aggravating mental exercises or other therapies Kate has come up with probably would work. Now that there was something that actually made sense to fix, he'd do whatever it takes to get himself the rest of the way back to feeling whole again.

* * *

"So…you OK?" Kate asks cautiously.

Sam looks over at her and clears his throat. "Uh, yeah, I guess. I umm, I don't really know what to say exactly. You uh…everything you said makes sense." He took a breath then continued.

"You know, I'm not sure if it was just a short-circuited head, but I never could quite figure out what Andy wanted. She came back and seemed shocked that I was upset that she had left. Then she seemed frustrated that I didn't immediately get over it and jump into practically playing house with her. But at the same time she seemed to chafe at the thought that I was still acting like I was her TO or was overbearing or something. She went after me about it one morning when I was teasing her about being hung over.

Which, OK, maybe I should have had enough sense to give her a wider berth until she felt better, but she was really kind of bitchy about it. And she just…she didn't seem to have any idea how hard it had been to train someone you care about. To do that job right and make sure she knew everything she needed to be good at the job and stay safe without being too much of a jerk. It really struck a nerve because I _know _I put more effort into training her and making sure she got the chance to step up and do things than anyone else would have. You'll have to tell me sometime how you and Danny manage to make the transition from advisor/student to couple work because I sure don't have the answers.

Anyway, the one time after we were together that I really did clearly overstep was to run a background check on her mother who turned up out of thin air after years of abandonment. I don't know what I thought a police check could protect her from anyway. I guess I just wanted to make sure she wasn't only around to hit Andy up for money or a kidney or some stupid thing like that. But Andy found out, and she didn't just tell me to back off or not do something like that behind her back. She also said it was none of my concern. So she seemed to be saying whatever we were to each other, it was separate from family. That was grating, but I never called her on any of her mixed signals because I was so mixed up about how I was feeling, what it was that _I _wanted," Sam sighs.

"But after that things slowly started to work themselves out a little. We were starting to click much better again and to figure things out, and for the most part it was really good. But…I did still feel a little off. One day I'd been kind of an ass about getting stuck having to baby sit a crackpot playing us with some B.S. about being a psychic to bail Ollie out of tight spot from losing Jerry's witness on a big case. Andy picks _that_ day to blurt out that she loves me. Right in the division parking lot when I was in the middle of telling her how the whack job had Oliver all wound up about something. And…I felt a million emotions at once. It was great, of course, on one level. It's what I'd wanted for a long time. But I couldn't help wondering what love even means to her. It still wasn't all that long since she thought she was in love with Callaghan. And I know I can't hang onto that forever. That at some point it has to become a non-issue left behind in the past. But I don't know…there were still so many things left unsaid between us. What kind of love could she really have been talking about?

But whatever hesitations I still had just didn't seem to be anything I could ever explain to her, and she was tripping all over herself to say she didn't care if I said it back. Even I am not clueless enough to really take at face value. But I took the out she gave me anyway.

Which of course only made things worse when it all came to a head the day after Jerry's funeral.

The way he died…I don't know if I'll ever really come to terms with it. But it was all so raw that day and I was so angry, I just lost it. I tried to just stay away until everything wasn't burning quite so hot, but we ended up thrown together cleaning up some loose ends from one of Jerry's cases. Jerry had a sketchy grease ball of a C.I with a bad mullet. I smelled his bullshit from a mile away. But McNally bought the crap he was peddling about a kidnapped autistic brother. She just wouldn't let it drop. God, it was like nails on a chalkboard the way she kept giving him the benefit of the doubt. And it's not that she was wrong that we had to be sure before we completely wrote his story off. But her priorities about that vs. making sure Jerry's legacy was protected just drove me up the wall. I finally just snapped and dumped all over her. I was pretty out of line, to say the least.

But later at the Penny after Nash read the wedding toasts Jerry had already written and would never get to say, Andy chased me down in the parking lot to bring up that stupid C.I. Even if it was to admit she was wrong, that was just the last straw. I finally knew I couldn't handle things anymore. I don't even know whether I meant to really break it off for good. But she took it that way, and I didn't deny it. I just walked away and left her crying in the rain. I know it was her worst fear all along that I would do that eventually. But I just didn't have it in me to soften the blow." Sam stopped and drew a shaky breath.

"But after the shock wore off a little, things only felt worse without her. Whatever problems we had, she's still the best thing that ever happened to me. I just didn't have a clue how to set things right. And the real kicker is that she actually did know me better than I thought. She'd called later that night and said she was OK with giving me some space. She even gave me a code word so that I wouldn't leave things hanging for lack of having the right words. But I never played the message until after she'd left for the taskforce," Sam shrugged and grimaced. "We always did have lousy timing."

Kate gives his hand a squeeze. "It's not too late, you know. If she really loves you, there will be a chance to start over and heal from everything the two of you went through."

Sam shoots her a skeptical look. "By the time she gets back, why would she want to open that wound again? Except maybe pity," he snorts.

"Sam, there's no reason to look at it that way. If nothing else, she deserves to know the truth. Letting her know what was going on with you doesn't have anything to do with pity. You're hardly a basket case now, and by the time I get through with you, you'll be back to your full Swarek swagger," Kate grinned." For better or worse," she teases with an elbow to his ribs.

"Hey, some people think that swagger is pretty awesome," Sam defends, starting to grin a bit himself.

Kate rolls her eyes, "Yes, pretty much every woman you meet. Except maybe your friends' wives."

"Tell me about it," Sam grumbles. "What's up with that anyway? Zoe Shaw's death stares aren't even subtle anymore."

Kate waves a dismissive hand, "They're just worried your revolving door of younger beautiful women will eventually spill over to their husbands. That at the first marital rough patch, they'll be tempted by one of your cast-offs or something. Zoe in particular acts like your bachelor ways are simultaneously a social catastrophe and so glamorous and tempting that Oliver will eventually get sucked in. It never occurs to her that if Oliver spends one too many nights at the Penny or playing poker, he probably just needs a break from her never-quite-satisfied complaining."

Sam shrugs, "He's more miserable without her. They hit that rough patch this year, and it really took a toll on him."

"So I heard. It's the only reason I might forgive him for being so clueless and not having your back better this year," Kate mutters darkly, face starting to flush with anger on his behalf.

Sam waves that off, "How was he supposed to know? He did try a little. He was the only one brave enough to bring up the topic of McNally at all when things weren't going great."

"Well, someone should have been there for you more after Brennan. Your long term friends at the least should know how much you downplay things."

Sam gives her a pointed look, "Yeah, I guess people who have known me a long time should know that."

Kate flushes with shame this time. "Sam, I really am sorry I never explained later why I left. I should have known better than to believe you really wanted us both to hide behind the fiction that it was never anything serious. I know you hate words like closure, but you deserved to have some. And after I heard what happened to you, I should have come to see for myself that you weren't falling through the cracks. I know I've let you down twice, but I promise I'll make sure you get through this now that I know what's been going on."

Sam gives her hand a squeeze this time, "It's OK. I think I'm finally ready to let go of all that. You were probably right that I wouldn't have just accepted it and let go if you'd done it another way." After a pause, he continues, "So uh, if I go all in with your rehab process, whatever it is, to get back to full Swarek awesomeness, will you finally tell me the big dark secret that scared you away in the first place?"

Kate hesitates, so he adds, "Seems like I should probably know what it is before I try to repair things with McNally, don't you think?

Kate sighs, "I'll consider it," is all she's willing to give him.

Sam stares her down for a long minute before conceding, "OK. Fair enough."

* * *

**AN: **So, now we're ready for the healing to begin. Hope I didn't make Sam too down on Andy, but I figure he deserves to vent a little instead of blaming himself for _everything_.


	17. Chapter 17: Far End of the Black

**Author's Note: **One comment about the last chapter: it was intended to reflect both the emotion of the moment following the medical analysis causing some thing to shake loose, allowing Sam to admit some thoughts he'd denied and share them with someone Andy doesn't work with without feeling too disloyal. But there's going to still be some limits on the depth of insight he can have at that point about the most intense feelings and what he would be willing and able to put into words. Kate is safer in some ways than a coworker, but she's also still someone with whom he shares a complicated past. Hopefully, I was at least in the ballpark of striking the right balance, but some of you might have felt he shared too much while others were disappointed that he didn't say more. I think that's probably unavoidable, especially given my amateur writing skills. ;)

Anyway, as always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 17: The Far End of the Black**

"So uh, if I go all in with your rehab process, whatever it is, to get back to full Swarek awesomeness, will you finally tell me the big dark secret that scared you away in the first place?"

Kate hesitates, so he adds, "Seems like I should probably know what it is before I try to repair things with McNally, don't you think?

Kate sighs, "I'll consider it," is all she's willing to give him.

Sam stares her down for a long minute before conceding, "OK. Fair enough."

* * *

*Two months later*

Sam has to hand it to Kate, along with the expected rounds of what seemed like an endless array of specialized computer-based mental drills and games, she's really quite ingenious at developing various therapies and experiences that don't really feel like therapy at all. She comes up with something slightly different for each person she works with, but they're all playing chess, poker, and all sorts of other specialized games involving strategy, teamwork, bluffing, and balancing trust and ambition with each other and a revolving door of brainiac graduate students.

But her main strategy had been to recruit him to help her devise a whole new interrogation training program for police officers based on tapes of old interviews, along with some of the stuff about reading mico-expressions she'd already taught him back when they were both still on the job. Going over hours of old cases to pick the best examples of successful and failed attempts at various techniques for reading and gaining the trust of suspects and witnesses as part of an actual project that had a good chance of being used and having both their names attached went a long way in making up for the days when his ego smarted from having his ex-girlfriend witness his limitations.

Not that he hadn't still had a few epic moments when he lost his cool and let his temper get the best of him. Most of the time knowing what had happened to him was a relief. But sometimes it just made him second-guess himself to a painful extent, no matter how many times Kate reminded him that many of the computer-based drills were designed to push him hard and be impossible for anyone to react to perfectly. He'd flipped out and nearly said he was done with it all more than once. But the totality of what he was getting out of this was always enough to bring him back.

One of the main draws was that she also integrated him into some group sessions with the injured soldiers she was working with. Kate had long capitalized on Danny's talent and research specialty in music as a way to stimulate all sorts of areas of the brain and to set up social experiences that didn't smack at all of typical group therapy. Danny's lab area included a basement like nothing he'd ever seen on a college campus before. There was a casual lounge area that seemed hipper than a lot of Toronto night spots. It was connected to a fully functional recording studio as well. Every day included at least some time writing and/or playing music with other guys who were currently or had in the past undergone therapy for brain injuries.

Danny himself worked with them intensively twice a week. Other days, at least one of his grad students was around. He taught those who already played instruments advanced techniques, and had all sorts of interesting things to share from his research about _how_ music evokes emotions. Every week or two, always on an unpredictable basis, some famous musician would drop by to play along, thank the soldiers for their service, and record a jam session. Sometimes it was just amateur video to keep as a memento. If something really good was going on, they would sometimes play it again in the sound studio to make a professional quality recording. Everything about it was fun as well as useful. And the relaxed atmosphere was a thousand times more conducive to stimulating a conversation about personal experiences here or there among men who were usually far from comfortable talking about feelings. Both Kate and Danny were dismissive of anything that smacked of clinical atmospherics or over reliance on prescription drugs for mood stabilization. Sam was relieved on both counts.

Kate also had him start running to make sure he still got a regular endorphin rush, seeing as he was both celibate with Andy gone and not getting any kind of rush from chasing down knuckleheads on the street. His "homework" was to still go to the Penny several nights a week and maintain contact with people from the 15th. She pushed him to start paying more attention to his friends' personal lives. He was supposed to get over his normal disinterest in workplace gossip and try to read people and guess what was going on with them.

She also pushed him to start playing poker with his work buddies again as well… something none of them had had the heart to do without Jerry. Kate suggested they invite a couple of rookies to play to shake up the routine and make his absence less painful. It had been weird and awkward at first, but also a bit of a relief to restore that tradition.

The downside was that Epstein was starting to think they were pals or something. Sam endured the resulting irritation by reminding himself that Andy saved the kid's career, and that he's had a hard time of it lately too. Mostly that's worked. Except when Dov confided that he'd slept with the pretty new rookie who happens to be Frank's goddaughter. Sam really wishes he could erase that bit of information from his head. He was even more annoyed that Kate wasn't the least bit apologetic about the level of oversharing her 'homework' had caused. She'd just laughed and told him it was his problem and to just have some real talk with Dov about using more common sense about what he confides to someone who's known Frank longer than anyone else of the force.

"He'll get it. Probably," she'd said. "It doesn't have to be all or nothing, Sammy. You can pay more attention without giving up the right to bust the junior guys' balls a little when they act like idiots. The point was to try to give you some practice making social inferences about people you don't know all that well. Maybe even develop a little extra empathy along the way, not push you to become besties or anything. I'm not trying to turn you into a saint."

"Good. I never thought you were one to one to chase lost causes. Though you may be giving Epstein too much credit," Sam had replied with a smirk.

Whatever her intention, she may just be making him a little bit of a better man in the process anyway. Who knows? Maybe he'll even feel like he's worthy of another chance by the time Andy comes back. He still misses her like crazy, but he's starting to feel much more grounded and at peace. He may even be capable of approaching asking for a second chance without swinging between unrealistic hopes and defeatist pessimism.

* * *

**AN: **I never intended to follow Sam's recovery process in too much detail. So this backward-looking reflection is most of what I'll write about that before moving the focus on to revealing more of the soapy Connolly/Swarek family history.


	18. Chapter 18: Back in the Saddle

**Author's Note: **As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 18: Back in the Saddle**

Who knows? Maybe he'll even feel like he's worthy of another chance by the time Andy comes back. He still misses her like crazy, but he's starting to feel much more grounded and at peace. He may even be capable of approaching asking for a second chance without swinging between unrealistic hopes and defeatist pessimism.

* * *

"Hey, how was your first week back on patrol?" Kate asks.

"It felt good," he says with a smile. "Not that what you've got going on in your little fiefdom here isn't interesting. But I was ready to get back to actually doing police work again."

"My grad student finished all the final revisions we gave her on the training module. I sent it to Frank yesterday. He thinks the brass are going to be pretty excited about it, and he seemed very glad to have you back," Kate says, returning his smile. "Have a seat. I just want to go over a few things with you," she motions him to the couch.

"I just went through your last round of test results. You're back about as close to 100% as we could wish. So, basically you're done. But I did want to ask if you would be willing to come back once every 3 months for the next year so we can document that the results we've achieved are long lasting. And we'd love to have you come back for the group music sessions Danny does anytime you want on your days off. A lot of the guys with injuries on the less severe range of the spectrum consider applying for jobs in civilian law enforcement, and they really benefit from talking to you. And everyone loves you. Plus, you play guitar better than most of them. But that's completely up to you. If you would rather just move on, that's fine too. I don't want you to feel obligated or anything…"

"Kate, stop. I'd love to keep coming when I can. That's one thing I would actually miss, and I'm happy to help if I can," Sam interrupts, then checks himself. "That probably sounded ungrateful. Which I'm not. I really don't know how to thank you for everything you've done for me. Of course I'll do whatever follow up tests will help prove the value of what you're doing here."

"There's no need for thanks, Sam. This is what I do. It's the best feeling in the world to be able to do if for an old friend. You and Sarah were the only truly good people I knew growing up. I wasn't about to let you go on burying your head in the sand if there was even a chance that what you were dealing with was something I was in a position to help with. Which leads me to the other lose ends. How much detail do you want me to pass along to Frank?" Kate asks.

"What do you mean? I thought he already knows everything," Sam asks with a confused frown.

"Not exactly. I did tell him about the water boarding. But all I told him beyond that is that while I didn't believe you were ever actually any risk to yourself or others on familiar patrol duty, I had discovered a couple very specific things that _might_ cause personal problems that could become an issue in the long run and that probably meant he should hold off enticing you to go for a detective's slot. I asked for his trust in my judgment if he assigned you here for a while, and he agreed. He said he'll take my professional judgment that you're as solid as ever, no further specifics needed, if that's what you want.

This may sound weird, given that I've told you that you need to talk to someone about what you've been through. But in this case, I think it may be better not to divulge full details. There's no need for you to question your judgment anymore, and there's no reason for Frank to do so either. But without having specialized knowledge or having seen all of the work you've put in here, he's bound to do exactly that the next time a tough call comes up, no matter how far you two go back. The weight of those Sergeant's stripes are just naturally going to make him overly cautious. You don't need that, and it will drive you crazy. I really think you should take the detective's slot, and that will involve enough additional politicking without adding another possible irritant into the mix."

"You really think I should make the move into the D's office?" Sam asks skeptically.

"Yes, I do. Sam, your sell-by date for UC work was probably already more or less up even before you took the Brennan assignment. Everyone connected to my family knows who you are, Hill and his crew know who you are. Going back under already was risky, and even if you were crazy enough to want to do it again, you're not likely to be asked after your cover got blow again, no matter how much that was Boyd's fault. You've been coasting along on patrol, mostly because you liked working with McNally, right? But that didn't go all that smoothly once you started seeing each other. So I just think you should be open to other options.

You once asked me how Danny and I managed marriage and working closely together after he had been the one who trained me. Well, the main thing is we have similar but distinct interests and capabilities. He loves the pure science questions and being in the limelight. Writing books, addressing large high profile conferences, doing his documentaries. Even after I turned him onto being interested in the traumatic brain injuries soldiers are returning with, he's interested in learning more about the functional mechanisms, while I'm more interested in applying that to develop better therapeutic approaches.

But it wasn't always easy. In the pure academic world, what he does is much more prestigious, plus I was his grad student. At first, it seemed terribly clichéd, and I thought I was just feeling the standard attraction a lot of women feel working closely with someone who's really smart and confident about something you're really passionately interested in yourself. But no matter how many times I told myself it was stupid and wrong and I'd only make a fool of myself, the attraction just grew and became so much more.

Anyway, once we went public with our relationship, I had to endure my fair share of snide remarks. No one dared say anything to Danny for fear he'd put them through the nearest wall, and I never told him about it because I didn't want him rushing to my defense. I figured it was the price I paid for being involved with my former adviser, and I was just going to have to suck it up for a while and ride those attitudes out. I knew sooner or later I'd make my own mark, and it would become a non-issue.

And it did. Now I'm probably the bigger draw in getting big dollar support from both the Canadian and U.S. militaries to fund all the fancy tech around this place. Danny's music research has a cool factor, but I doubt the university would have allowed him as free a hand to put his stamp on the lounge and studio if I wasn't getting such powerful concrete results.

But it took a while for me to build a niche where I had anything approaching his stature. And there were times when the brilliance and confidence that I do really love about him seemed… I don't know, a little stifling I guess. Like I was continuing to rely on being able to bounce ideas off him too much instead working through problems on my own. Or that I never really thought I was on the right path with something until he agreed. None of that was his fault. Those were my hang-ups to get over, and I tried not to vent on him irrationally. But we definitely felt the strain from time to time until I really hit my stride professionally.

It's almost certain that Andy has had a similar experience with a few nasty comments about whether she got special treatment from you as a TO, or digs that she's a bad influence dragging you down, or a million other possible rude things. People at the 15th are great for the most part, but every division has a couple guys who are knuckle draggers. And there's usually a few women who really dislike any female who reinforces stereotypes about sex and career advancement, not to mention some who are just plain envious of anyone more attractive than they are.

So just like you felt she didn't really get how hard doing the right thing as her TO was for you, I'm sure she sometimes feels like you don't understand how hard it is to be on the low power end of the equation in what's still a bit of a male-dominated field. Probably she has pushed back a few times in less than ideal ways at feeling like you still think of her as a rookie. Maybe one of the reasons she took the taskforce was to prove to herself that she could handle a challenge without the safety net of knowing you were there to back her up or tell her what to do?

You guys are really going to need to talk about all of this and work it out. But I think you also need to start thinking about what _you_ want for your own professional future, and I think things might be easier if the two of you aren't in identical roles within the force with just rank and seniority blurring lines of responsibility and authority."

"Hmm," is all Sam can manage. Kate actually made some good points that he'd never fully considered.

"Besides, Sammy. Having a little ambition isn't some kind of fatal moral flaw. You can take on new things without selling your soul. You don't have to be so afraid of becoming your father, you know," she adds softly.

Sam's head whips around at that one. "Where did _that_ come from?" he snaps. But the words hit a little too close to home, no matter how much he's always avoided any of introspection about his daddy issues.

"You think there have never been times I was afraid of becoming my mother?" Kate asks with a raised brow. She knew she was wading into tricky waters here. She'd never raised anything nearly so explosive or personal about Sam's feelings about his dad, but she was pretty sure she wasn't wrong about this. Wouldn't you know it, her mother chose that moment to have talked her way into Kate's office.

"I'd be insulted if every girl wasn't afraid of becoming her mother. But, Kate, I'm sure it's not your place to drag Sam into a discussion of family matters of that sort," her mother declares with heavy disapproval.

"Will wonders never cease, I actually agree with you, Mrs. Connolly," Sam says, choking on the irony. "Though I'm sure my so-called lack of ambition was one of the many reasons you thought I wasn't right for your daughter. This seems like a good time for me to be on my way. If you'll excuse me…" Sam says tightly as he tries to sidestep Kate on his way out.

"No! Sam, please just hang on for a second. We're not done here, and you've got that all wrong," Kate blocks his path, pleading with him to do as she asks, before pivoting to confront her mother.

"What on earth are you doing here of all places? Seriously, talking your way past security and barging through my secretary unannounced? Are you crazy? What's gotten into you? Do you want to put my security clearance at risk? You need to leave. Now. Whatever is on your mind can be discussed later," Kate keeps her voice lowered, but her anger comes across clearly enough to make her mother back down.

"Of course, this was foolish of me. Call me later, darling." But she uses a motherly hug as an opportunity to whisper a warning, "I knew this was a bad idea. You're wandering into dangerous territory. If you want what's best for Sam, leave well enough alone."

She releases her daughter before nodding to Sam, "My apologies for interrupting. It's good to see that you're doing well, Sam," she says before making an exit with her trademark grace nearly disguising that fact that it was a retreat. After all these years, she still managed to come off as some modern day combination of one of the glamorous but vulnerable blonde actresses from a Hitchcock movie with the theatrical steel of Evita Peron.

"Sam, she didn't interfere because she thought you weren't good enough for me. It was the other way around. She was afraid of what it would to you if we became anything serious," Kate says.

Sam snorts, "You're trying to tell me she tracked you down and flew all the way to Antigua for _my_ sake? Save it, Kate. I appreciate what you've done for me, I do. But I don't need you to prop up my ego about where I stand in your mother's eyes. Or psychoanalyze how I feel about my father. Or stage manage my career…"

"I wasn't making that up to stroke your ego! It's the truth," Kate interrupts adamantly. "There are some things you should never have to learn about someone you love," she adds softly.

"Kate, what are you talking about? It's no mystery how your family earns its money, no matter how much the legitimate businesses have grown. And you were never a part of any of that anyway. I knew what I was getting into," Sam scoffs.

"No. You didn't. And neither did I. There are more secrets beyond what the world thinks it knows about the Connollys than you might think," Kate says tiredly. "Maybe you even deserve to know the truth, though I'm certain it will do more harm than good."

"I think it's time you found out," Sam said, folding his arms and looking like he wasn't going to budge until she agreed.

"Maybe so. But not here. I'll come by your place on my way home," Kate hedges, still not sure what the right thing was in this case. Either way, she certainly wasn't' going to get any further into this in her office.

"Fine," Sam agrees reluctantly. He'd prefer to press his advantage now, but this wasn't really the place for it. "Text me when you're on your way." he adds before striding out the door.

Something about the way Kate was acting had all sorts of alarm bells ringing. He'd thought she was playing up the notion of some sort of secret as a way to explain away a simple case of cold feet and/or motherly disapproval. But now… he was afraid there really might be something that he might end up wishing he'd never learned.


	19. Chapter 19: Through the Looking Glass

**Author's Note: **Part of the dark secrets I've written for the Connolly family intersect with a totally made up history involving a real prominent Toronto family. So, apologies in advance for that entirely slanderous storyline. I'll say more about how I've blended fact and fiction in the author's note after the chapter. This chapter is much longer than any so far because this family history is a very intricate, twisted tale. Which is also why it took me a bit longer to update this time.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 19: Through the Looking Glass**

Something about the way Kate was acting had all sorts of alarm bells ringing. He'd thought she was playing up the notion of some sort of secret as a way to explain away a simple case of cold feet and/or motherly disapproval. But now… he's afraid there really might be something that he might end up wishing he'd never learned.

* * *

Kate shows up at his door that night looking pale and more nervous than Sam's ever seen her. OK, now Sam's sure this is definitely not going to be a fun conversation. Not that any conversation that touched on their parents ever was, but…

"Don't tell me you actually have something to say that's worse than the time you came by planning to tell me I had brain damage," Sam jokes, but doesn't get much of a smile out of her.

He sighs, "Come on in. Let's just have a beer first."

"Yeah," Kate breathes. "Sorry, I don't mean to freak you out. It's just… once you start peering Through the Looking Glass of convenient fictions our parents created, things get much weirder than anything Lewis Carroll ever dreamed up for Alice," she smiles wryly. "I'm not sure how I'm gonna tell you about it. Or whether I even should."

"Kate, sit down. I think you've already made up your mind to tell me, and you're never at a loss for words for too long," Sam hands her a beer and plants himself in one corner of the couch, waiting for her to follow suit. She does, but her posture doesn't relax one bit.

"Look, I know your father is something we never really talk about. But I brought him up today because I understand only too well what it's like to have confusing mixed feelings about parents," she fidgets with the label of her beer a while before continuing.

"Growing up, my father was this somewhat scary, distant reality who overshadowed _everything_ in my world. He absolutely adored my mother, but as far as kids went, he was all about his boys. I was hers, and that was fine with me because all I wanted to do was bide my time and get out of the web of his influence. It's not that I hated him, exactly. I just couldn't accept the easy way he rationalized carrying on and expanding the various rackets the Connollys have controlled for over a century.

My mother was different. I couldn't help but love her. But at the same time I blamed her even more in some ways because she wasn't born into it. In my mind, she _chose_ to marry into a crime family, so her rationalizations rang even more hollow to me. So once I was through college, I didn't cut off contact with her, but I never stopped judging her life choices either. But…." Kate's voice falters for a bit, so she pauses to take a drink of beer.

"But, then I found out her story was a lot more complicated than I'd ever imagined. Starting with the fact that her real maiden name wasn't Catherine Dunaway. She'd had my father get her birth certificate forged, borrowing names from Catherine DeNeuve and Faye Dunaway. She said the movies Belle Du Jour and Bonnie and Clyde made her feel like it wasn't so shocking that beautiful women had more messy, complicated lives than polite society of her era admitted. She also had him add three year to her age, probably the first female in the history of ever to do that," Kate rolls her eyes.

She looks over at Sam and says softly, "Her real name was Shirley Thomson."

Sam catches the significance of her look and nearly does a spit take with his beer. "Shirley Thomson? _The_ Shirley Thomson? Daughter of the richest man in Canada? The media baron who's a real titled Baron? You're saying the 13 year-old girl at the center of the biggest unsolved missing person case in Canadian history is _your mother_?" Sam gapes at her, brows nearly disappearing beneath his hair.

"How…. how is it remotely possible that she's been right under her family's nose all this time. And no one put it together? I mean, there were always rumors in the neighborhood about what your mother's real past might be, but not once did I ever hear anyone guess that she was the missing heiress," Sam says, shaking his head in disbelief.

Kate shrugs, "The mind sees what it expects to see, I guess. Even I never knew until she tracked me down to Antigua. The Thomsons have always been very private, and even after her disappearance and what counted for a minor media frenzy in those days, the only image of her that was ever released was a fairly poor quality black and white photo." Kate pulls out an old magazine with that photo on the cover. "Once you know and look closely, you can see that it's her. But it's not obvious."

Sam picks it up and looks closely. It's true, now that he looks closely he sees hints of the woman who he remembered as the most glamorous person in Toronto's Downtown East neighborhood. Or as everyone who lived there called it, "Connolly City."

"So I guess the theory that she was spirited away to some commune in California by misguided, drug-addled hippies bent on saving her from being raised by capitalist monsters was slightly off base," Sam smirks at how ridiculous that leading theory about the ongoing mystery sounds in retrospect.

"Yeah, but don't laugh. My dad helped that one along by planting witness sightings various points west. And when Patty Hearst was kidnapped a few years later, it didn't seem so crazy to most people. A lot of the middle class was willing to believe just about anything about the threatening counter culture by the end of the 1960s."

"I guess," Sam says skeptically. "Wow, that's just… But how did she end up with your father?"

"He didn't kidnap her or anything. She ran away from the Thomson mansion in Rosedale. She took a couple million dollar's worth of her mother's jewelry, including insurance appraisals to prove their value, and a small pistol with her.

The first place she headed was the Bloor St. boutique where my father was stationed at the time. On it's face, it's a relatively trendy clothing and jewelry boutique. But there's a hidden basement that's more secure than most banks. It's where the Connollys run a secret, discrete very high end specialized jewelry business. Basically, it's where the super rich turn to quietly unload multi-million dollar custom jewelry when they run into liquidity problems they don't want anyone to know about.

These days trophy wives sometimes go there to sell gifts and replace them with fakes as insurance against divorce. Some of the more brazen and desperate families sometimes get help running insurance fraud scams and ask the Connollys to hold the pieces on site for them. The family has been quietly fencing expensive, unique pieces to buyers overseas for ages. Anyway, her mother, my grandmother I guess, used to bring her to the tea house across the street to watch for anyone she recognized dropping by. The two one them would try to guess whether the person was there to buy or sell.

So anyway, my mother shows up there with the stolen loot that she planned to use to finance her independence. My father told her there were only two reasons a kid her age ran away from a family like hers. One was getting into drugs way before any kid should. When he threatened to drug test her and take her back to her parents if it was positive, she pulled her little gun on him.

My dad was in his mid-twenties at the time. But something about her already got to him. He laughed and told her she had way more spunk than commonsense to pull a little girly gun on a member of the biggest crime family in the city… So she shot him. Well, just nicked his shoulder. But he could tell by the way she panicked that she'd run away for the other reason, so I guess it didn't bother him too much…" Kate trails off.

Sam sucked in a sharp breath, "You mean…"

"Yeah," Kate says hoarsely as the bile rises up in her throat. "Turns out my 'respectable' maternal grandfather is a bigger bastard than any of the notorious gangsters on the other side of my family. I have quite the pedigree," Kate says lips twisted in disgust.

"He was married to a beautiful model who was the ultimate society wife, but he'd been molesting my mother for over a year before she got the courage to say anything. But her mother hadn't believed her. She believed his lies that it was all made up out of resentment because she'd found out that despite being the oldest, he wasn't going to be able to live up to promises of giving her control of the businesses. I suppose it was somewhat plausible since Ken Thomson was known to dote on his little girl and bring her along to business meetings. And my mother said it was true that there were an iron-clad restrictions on the family trusts ensuring that the eldest sons always had control. But mostly her mother just didn't want to believe anything more sordid was going on. As much as they played the grieving victims publicly, probably they were secretly a little relieved she was gone. And draw your own conclusions about why the Thomsons spent $117 million ten years ago to buy Rubens' gory _The Slaughter of the Innocents _and donate it to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Their shrinks must make a fortune," Kate wrinkles her nose.

"Anyway, back when everyone was still looking for her, my father and grandfather hid her in their guest house for four years, with just tutors and my aunt around as her best friend. My father was the smartest and savviest among his brothers. But until my mother came along, he wasn't that thrilled about being his father's choice to take over as head of the family. But my mother provided him with the romantic reason for his ambition. After that, protecting her became the myth around which he could build his drive for money and power. And she in turn started to see life among the Connollys as a sort of Bonnie and Clyde existence. Dad and his driver take her out in his Town Car with tinted windows once a day so she didn't feel like a complete shut in. He waited patiently until she turned 17, and then she agreed to marry him, telling herself she would show him how to be smart about using fear so that he only had to actually use violence very rarely."

Kate shrugs, "After she told me about the family she ran from, it didn't quite seem like as much like a bullshit excuse as I'd always thought it was. I don't know how much of it was her influence, but it's true that as far as gangsters go, he runs things pretty well."

Sam shrugs, but doesn't deny that. Joe Connolly might be the most powerful, but most everyone has to admit he's hardly the worst underworld kingpin. He stays silent, waiting to see what else she'll say.

"Every business in the Downtown East area pays a protection fee, but he charges reasonable rates and makes allowances if an owner honestly has a down period. And for their money, their businesses not only never get robbed, there's zero street crime in the whole area. No muggings or rapes. Women don't even have to worry about street harassment. The Connollys only deal in pot, cocaine, and speed, but it's done so discreetly no one ever gets caught.

The people running Ryerson and even the University of Toronto actually want him in charge because he makes sure students with apartments in the neighborhood don't get robbed when they're on breaks. They'd never say so, but they'd even rather have their students buy drugs from the Connolly network than anyone else because the drugs are never bad, and dealers are told not to sell too much to students. Not to mention that he's made several large donations to Ryerson through shell companies, but that's another story.

I'm not saying that I don't still disapprove, but my father does run things so that everyone he deals with stays happy and loyal. He never lets any of the crime he's involved in get out of hand. Things stay intentionally quiet so cops have no need to patrol his areas often.

But mostly everyone in the city likes that while he supplies drugs to dealers there too, he keeps the problems in the St. Jamestown area contained. No one who lives there dares to create any problems west of Sherbourne Street. And the ambitious families there know that if they start a business over in Connolly City, they'll be treated fairly and have a stable enough environment to make a decent living.

No rivals are crazy enough to challenge him because the loyalty of his guys is too deep, and his grip on power is too solid. Plus, he controls the gun trade. Even Anton Hill agreed to only take the rackets my father considers beneath him, like prostitution and dealing gutter drugs like heroine, crack, and meth and to keep his dealers south of Dundas rather than risk a turf war. Though his hookers seem to keep drifting north closer the Garden District, he mostly tries not to do anything that will spread his chaos too far. That's why most cops, even if they don't like the idea that some of their fellow officers might be on Dad's payroll, would just as soon he keep running things rather than someone else who would cause more problems.

My dad even managed to get the Bragas to get the Italian mafia families to run their car theft rings and other rackets in a similar way ever since my aunt married J.T.'s uncle. J.T. told me you stopped by the garage Bobby Alvarez runs for his family, by the way. He said you looked really nervous he might say the wrong thing, but were definitely also showing off for your partner. He got a real kick out of it."

Sam snorts, "I'll bet. How is it that Bobby ended up as J.T.'s boss anyway?"

"He's not. But J.T. went straight. He manages the legitimate mechanics and just keeps an eye out to make sure Bobby doesn't rip the Braga family off on the stolen goods end of things. Or basically become too much of a cowboy. But J.T. isn't actually involved in any of the black market items that flow through that place. His mom and mine teamed up to convince his father to let him just stick to his love of cars. He really liked you when you worked there part time. It was when you left to go to the police academy that he finally decided to stand up and ask to be allowed to just stick to the legitimate front business. He may be built like all the guys in my family, but he's more of a gentle giant than the rest. He never liked having to even pretend to be willing to crack skulls."

"That's good. I was hoping I'd never have to arrest J.T. for anything. He was a good guy. Taught me a lot, and we had fun," Sam says with a fond smile.

"You know, the reason we were there that day was because one of the kids working for Bobby had a thing for his daughter, Stella. He was a foster kid who was much more of a screwed up idiot than I ever was, and even though Stella isn't in your class, she was still pretty and smart. On her way to Stanford actually.

That night I couldn't help thinking about how the torch I'd once carried for you was just as hopeless in the end. And McNally out of the blue had said she thought that I thought the two of us are too different to last. Which, of course, I figured meant that _she_ thought we were too different or something. Maybe she picked up on the fact that I knew J.T. and Bobby or something. I don't know. But the whole day was just weird," Sam sighs, wishing he hadn't left Andy to read between the lines of what he'd said about Callaghan and not wanting to rush things. But she'd caught him off guard, and honestly, he wasn't too sure what he was feeling about things himself back then.

Kate sits forward in her seat at that, "See, this is why I'm bringing up all this old baggage. I get the feeling you think the one weakness the mother you put on a pedestal had was loving the wrong guy. And while you've tried your whole life to be the opposite of what you believe your father to be, somewhere, deep down, you're afraid some woman is going to make a similar bad bet on you.

Sammy, the thing is that your mother was brave and amazing and she gave you those ridiculously long lashes and charming dimples. But just like everyone, she wasn't perfect. But her biggest weakness wasn't loving your dad. And you don't need to worry about being like him. Some of the best things about you are _just_ like him…"

"Stop!" Sam slams down his beer, a muscle twitching wildly in his jaw the way it does when he's _really_ pissed off. He glares over at her before continuing, "Just don't, OK. Don't say that. And don't try to find some redeeming quality for a guy who was weak and stupid and just plain crazy enough to try to steal dirty money from a Connolly. A guy who's spent more than 30 years in Maplehurst, the "Milton Hilton." I heard every Polack joke in the book as a kid about the level of dumbass stupidity it takes to turn your wife and kids into the Milton Hillbillies by skimming mob money."

"Sam, just listen! Listen to me for a minute, OK? Forget all the stuff those idiots from the neighborhood said. I'm trying to tell you that most of what you've been told about your father, most of what _he_ told you, isn't true. After I left you, I went to visit him. I told him my mother finally explained everything to me, and how confused I was about what I should do. He told me that letting you believe the worst of him was the hardest thing he's ever done, but he thought it was the best way to protect you and make sure that you live your own life instead of trying to undo the past. He asked me to respect his decision, to leave things as they stood and to listen to my mother and stay away from you."

"_What?_" Sam asks incredulously. "You went to visit my father? And he said… What exactly has everyone been keeping from me?" Sam asks in the tight, controlled tone he uses when he's trying very hard to hold his temper.

Kate sighs, "Sammy, your dad never skimmed any money. He didn't even know the company had anything to do with the Connolly syndicate when he took the job. One of my dad's cousins with a different last name ran it. Dad has things set up with at least four layers of companies, successively laundering less money. Your dad worked for one that was supposed to be 100% legitimate. But this idiot cousin of his is the one undisciplined family member who didn't follow plans to the letter. He'd made some business deals that went south and was trying to cover for it by using funds that are supposed to only be laundered through other businesses run by loyal members of the organization who are vetted and trusted and know what they're getting into.

Smart, honest guys like your dad were never supposed to have anything to do with the books that have any trace of dirty money. But Dads' cousin is the one idiot in our family, and your dad caught on that things weren't right. He started looking into things he probably should have at the start and figured out who his boss was related to and where the irregular flows of money must be coming from.

So, he went to the cops and tried to blow the whistle. The only stupid thing he ever did was to trust a relatively inexperienced detective who didn't know how to plug leaks fully enough and had your dad doing overly risky searches at work to try to uncover more evidence before he had all the witness protection arrangements finalized.

My father had already caught wind that things weren't being run right at that business, and that his cousin was breaking security protocols and putting the organization at risk. He had that place bugged at security cameras installed and was deciding how severely he needed to move against his cousin and what damage might have been done when your father broke into his boss's office on a weekend to copy a final round of documents for his handler. That idiot had some other big case break that day, so he didn't even meet with your father right away to see what he'd got and move security precautions along. Your dad went home to play with you and Sarah and your mom never knowing anyone was onto him.

My father wanted to just pick your dad up and kill him before he could turn anything more over to the cops. But my mother didn't like the idea of doing that to someone who didn't choose the life freely. She convinced him to let her go by your house and see if the whole thing couldn't be buried and handled with threats. So she went by the Victorian house your parents had rehabbed over in Cabbagetown. They were among the first dozen or so families to see the potential and start the turnaround of the area. Your family was out in the front yard playing in the leaves, so it was easy for my mother to approach and pretend to be considering moving into the neighborhood herself.

She told me she instantly fell in love with the life your family had. They'd made the house charming, and were obviously deeply in love. Your dad was clearly a devoted father and family man. She was sure he would do anything to protect that family, even if he'd naively taken a risk with the police so far. But she said the what sealed it was you, Sammy. You weren't much more than a year old, and she said you walked right up to her and climbed into her lap. You gave her a hug and said "pretty" with a big flirty dimply grin. Your dad said it was the first word you learned because every day when he came home he asked how his pretty wife's day went.

My mom said she just lost it. That in that minute she saw what her sons might have been like with a different father. My father might dote on my mother, but he was never affectionate with his kids. My brothers in particular were taught to be tough and carry themselves in a way that would demand respect from the roughest guys on the street.

I remember years later my mom used to play that No Doubt song "Simple Kind of Life" all the time. I used to think she did it ironically or to try to seem like she was in touch with the music of my generation. But I think she was genuinely envious of the life your family had before it got caught up in our world. She hated what our family did to yours, and the fact that she couldn't let it go became a kind of unspoken battle line between my parents.

Anyway, she came back from meeting your parents, and convinced my father to follow her plan for handling things. They created a false paper trail that made it seem like your father had originally gone to the police with forged records. They set up a firewall to implicate dad's cousin in a very isolated bit of criminal activity that would never lead to the rest of Connolly rackets. So the detective would be given a trail to follow that led to one minor scalp and some bookies that no one really cared about. Later, the cousin who caused the whole mess and who's scalp was to be served up would be killed in a staged suicide. The paper trail also made it look like your father had been skimming and panicked when he thought he would be caught, and had gone to the cops to blow the whistle just to cover his tracks and get into witness protection.

All they had to do was have some goons pick up your family and bring them by our house. There's a sound proof room in the basement where my father terrifies people he wants to get to get in line. Those he's decided to intimidate rather than kill. My mom was right, it was easy to get your dad to agree to pretend he'd been playing the cops. He agreed to take plea deal to keep the whole thing out of court in return for a promise that the rest of the family would be safe.

The detective and prosecuting attorney were ambitious and vindictive about being made to look foolish, so they threw every charge imaginable at your dad. The plea deal they forced on him included a much more severe sentence than even my parents thought he would get as a first time white collar offender. And since they thought he'd originally willingly laundered money, they seized all your family's assets as well.

My mom tried to keep your family in your house, but my dad wanted to be able to keep an eye on all of you. So he forced your mom to move into Connolly City as part of the deal to keep your dad alive. The warden at Maplehurst is in dad's pocket, so it was no idle threat still hanging over his head.

And anyway, your mom was so angry at the way my mother had fooled all of you, she refused any help after you were left in such dire financial straits. It's pathetic given all that you lost growing up without your dad, but my mom did still try to protect you and do what she could for you and Sarah. She secretly made arrangements with your landlord to cover half the rent, made sure the best Catholic school in the area gave you both scholarships. She was even the one who first told me to befriend Sarah. I never knew why she took such an interest in your family back then, but it didn't matter because I loved Sarah as soon as I got to know her."

Kate pauses and draws a shuddering breath, "But even that turned out to be a disaster. We've done so much damage to your family, Sam," Kate whispers, tears starting to flow.

Sam's reeling mind keeps up just enough for ice to run through his veins. Suddenly, he knows what she was about to say. He'd heard rumors, but thought they must be wrong…

"Sammy, Sarah and I never told anyone this, but the night she was attacked we didn't just go to Morti's for ice cream like we told everyone."

"No," he says hoarsely, shaking his head. But he knew it must be true. A rape in Connolly City would have never happened otherwise.

"It was my fault," Kate said. "I was twelve going on sixteen, and I convinced Sarah to come with me down to "Hooker Harvey's" down by Jarvis and Gerrard to watch middle aged losers pick up prostitutes. It wasn't late, but it was after dark. My father had always warned me never to go south of Carlton Street without one of my brothers. He told me not everyone down there would know who I am, and it was too dangerous for someone my age. But I didn't listen.

Some guys at Harvey's started giving us a hard time, and I told them off like I always did. I guess they worked for Anton Hill and were trying to get into my dad's crew. Which was never going to happen, but they were morons and new to Toronto. They asked whoever they were meeting about me and your sister. I guess they got bad information that led them to believe my dad had been cornered into going easy on your dad and might wish he'd had freer rein to go harder on him. Rumors of the BS story fed to the police had leaked out a bit to the street apparently. Some couldn't believe my dad would ever let anyone who dared try to steal from him live. Anyway, they followed us. Not knowing anything about how my dad operates, they actually thought they were doing something that would be rewarded by attacking Sarah.

God, I should have walked her all the way home. But I didn't know they had followed us, and I thought your block was far enough into the heart of Connolly City that she would be fine. My parents thought I felt bad enough about the whole thing, so they never told me who did it. Dad just said they found them and beat them nearly to death and banned them from Toronto forever. He said he showed you the photos himself so that you would know that what happened to Sarah went against everything in the Connolly code and that your family would never have to worry about anything happening to Sarah again.

That was too little, too late, to say the least. When my mother told me everything in Antigua, I knew for sure I had to leave. The Connollys have never been anything but a disaster for the Swareks. I'll never forgive myself for what happened to Sarah. If you want me to stay away from her, I will. I'll even tell her the truth if you want, but I don't think it's right to reopen that wound now that she's got a happy family life in St. Catherine's," Kate draws a shaky breath before continuing.

"Sammy, I'm still not sure I'm doing the right thing telling you all of this either. Your father didn't want you to know what he sacrificed to keep the rest of you safe. Maybe he's right that the knowledge is still dangerous, but the shame and anger toward him you've carried around are a damaging burden too. He's an incredible man who just got in over his head by having too much faith in the system. The part of you that made you instantly willing to trust Oliver to do the right thing and back him up if he made the wrong choice in the heat of the moment? You get that from him, whether you know it or not. Your mother too. She wasn't wrong about your father. She just couldn't tell you why she had such faith in him all along and never blamed him for how her life turned out."

Sam realizes he's finally releasing tears he's held back for years. His thoughts are in such a whirl, they don't know where to land first. Images of each of his family members flash through his head, feelings and conversations from the past taking on an entirely new light. Relief is followed quickly by anger, which in turn chased almost immediately by despair at all those lost years he can never restore to his father. Finally, nausea bubbles up as he remembers the paternal way Joe Connolly had pulled him aside to show him the photos of Sarah's battered attackers, and how _grateful _he'd felt that someone old enough and strong enough had stood up for her and made sure the guys who did that to her paid for it. He runs for the bathroom as the sheer horror of it all sinks in.

Kate follows. She doesn't try to touch him with a comforting hand though. "Sammy, I can't tell you how sorry I am. About everything. I'm going to leave now. I'm sure you can't stand to even look at me at the moment. But I just want to say that the best way you can honor your father's sacrifice is to think carefully before you make any moves. Dad's mellowed some and is moving toward steering his grandchildren away from criminal rackets. But I can't predict what will happen if you try to go after him.

I've tried not to know many details, but I do know that Dad has a surveillance system you wouldn't believe now. Beyond all the moles he has in the police department, he's got dirt on a lot of prominent people from those high stakes poker games he runs for big players in the Financial District. He also hired an ex-CIA guy from the States years ago as a technical and strategic consigliore of sorts. They have backdoor access to databases from credit card processing, phone, and God know what other companies through a thicket of shell companies serving as contractors to the big firms. That guy also brought in a tech whiz that built a mind boggling program to sift through all sorts of data to flag certain moves by anyone who's been deemed a potential threat. Once an alert is tripped, they start sophisticated surveillance that's hard to detect. He could be onto you before you get the faintest hint that he's suspicious.

And the detective who screwed up your dad's case is now a big player within the department. Sammy, he's Steve Peck's godfather, and he's about as connected as they come in police circles. So every way you turn if you try to fully right this, you're going to run into power structures that are impossible to take on.

The doable part, I think, is getting your dad out of jail. My mom even has the deed to your old house that she desperately wants to give him once he's released. I think the only reason he's even still there is that the warden has acted on his own to get new charges added. Probably he's got some Shawshank Redemption type arrangement with your dad to hide the fact that he was ordered to keep your dad safe and in cushy quarters. Better to let people think he's getting some help with creative bookkeeping to skim a little from the prison budget than to let anyone know he's on a mob payroll.

But the warden won't dare cross my dad if he orders him to find a way to get your dad out. That much I think my mother and I can get him to make happen. He wouldn't even have to know that I've told you anything. I could just say that after working with you the past couple months, I can't live with your dad being stuck in prison any longer.

But vengeance… Sam, please don't try to go down that path. Not because I think my family doesn't' deserve to go down. But because you deserve to have the long happy life your father wanted for you. Choose that life. Make things right with Andy and live the life your parents should have had and wanted for you."

Sam remains with his arms braced against the toilet, gasping for breath as he hears her steps echo down the hall over the ringing in his ears. He knows Kate's probably right, but the emotions are too raw right now to even begin to start thinking things through clearly. His world has been turned so far upside down, he's not sure he'll ever stop feelings this overwhelming sense of vertigo.

Through the Looking Glass… Kate sure knows how to understate things, he thinks with a bitter laugh, rocking back onto his heels. He'd thought the first time she ripped his world apart was rough. But this… How the hell was he going find a way to right things enough to live with himself without taking on a suicide mission? Should he really just sit back and trust Kate to go through her parents to get his dad out? Could he live with doing nothing more than that?

* * *

**AN: **Just some added detail for anyone who's either offended or lost to show what I pulled together from real life, the show cannon, and my crazy brain. ;)

**Fact vs. fiction on the Thomsons:** They are the richest family in Canada. Among other things, they control 53% of Thomson Reuters, and they do have mansions in the Craiglegh Gardens section of Rosedale. (the real Rosedale is just north of the projects in St. Jamestown and just northeast of Downtown East, where I've situated the fictional "Connolly City" as the center of the Irish syndicate run by the Connollys, after asking Canadians on TWC fan board for good neighborhood candidates)

The supposed kidnapping (actually incest-driven runaway) is entirely fabricated. But Wikipedia does list the real current Thomson scion David Thomson as having a sister Shirley. But Shirley is not listed as one of his father's children in Kenneth Thomson's Wikipedia entry. So I used that tiny discrepancy as the basis for my invented story about Shirley Thomson, AKA Catherine Connolly, as Kate's mother. I don't mean to actually smear the Thomsons in any way with the ick factor here. They just have a few family traits that conveniently work for fitting with my fictional Connollys.

* * *

**Appendix: Timeline of Major Events**

1910 Kate's grandfather John Connolly is born, one of 8 children (5 brothers, 2 sisters)

1920-1933 Prohibition in U.S. (Connolly family is Joe Kennedy Sr's biggest booze supplier)

1923 Kenneth Thomson, Kate's maternal grandfather is born

1941 Joseph Connolly, **Kate's father is born**, one of 7 children (5 brothers, 1 sister)

1949 Ray Swarek, **Sam's father is born **(Polish)

1952 Sonya Sedlak, **Sam's mother is born **(Czech)

1954 Jan: Shirley Thomson, **Kate's mother is born**, named after Shirley Temple [timeline glitch: real Kenneth Thomson didn't actually marry model Nora Marilyn Mavis til 1956]

1964 Roy Thomson, Kate's great grandfather awarded the hereditary title Baron of Fleet

1967 Sept: **Kate's mother runs away at age 13** after being molested by father, disbelieved by mother, changes name to Catherine Dunaway; meets Joe Connolly when he's 26

1967-1970 Kate's grandfather & father hide Catherine in guesthouse on their adjacent properties on Jarvis, south of Gloucester St.

1971 Jan: **Kate's parents marry **when her mother is 17, father 30, Kate's oldest brother born that Oct; Sept: **Sam's parents marry** (Ray & Sonya)

1972 Kate's parents have 2nd son in Nov, **Joe Connolly's sister marries head of the Braga family**, who are in turn related to both the Sicilian Magaddino crime family in Buffalo, NY & members of the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria [note: Braga is actually a Portuguese name]

1973 **Sarah is born **in Dec, Kate's parents have a 3rd son in Sept

1974 **Kate is born** in Dec; Patricia Hearst is kidnapped February 4th

1975 John Connolly dies & **Kate's father becomes head of Connolly family**, Connollys start dealing pot from Humbolt; Sam's family buys & rehabs a Victorian house in Cabbagetown (area revitalized in 70s & 80s)

1977 **Sam is born **in Feb, Sam's father takes a job at a business run by a Connolly cousin

1979 Sam's dad discovers financial irregularities, blows whistle, Connollys find out, Kate's mom scopes out their family, convinces husband to threaten & frame rather than kill Sam's dad

1980 **Sam's father goes to prison **at age 31**,** they lose the house when Sam is just 3 years old

1983 **Sam meets his father for the 1st time **at age 6 in prison at Maplehurst Correctional Center in Milton, W of Toronto (nicknamed the "Milton Hilton"); **Joe** **Connolly hires an ex-CIA operative** w/ Russian contacts, drug contacts, wiretapping & computer expertise

1984 **Andy is born**; **Joe Connolly makes pact with Anton Hill **dividing up crime biz turf by territory & product; Connollys/Bragas: N of Dundas St., guns, gambling including high stakes poker, high end jewelry fencing, protection, pot, coke, speed, auto theft; Hill: heroine, crack, meth, prostitution

1986 **Sarah is attacked **when she's 13, Kate is 12, Sam is 9 (start of crack epidemic); Joe Connolly punishes attackers & runs them out of town

1987 **Sam's dad tells Sam he's guilty **and to stop dreaming of clearing his name

1988 **Sam takes over mother's cupcakes biz **at age 11 after his mother's health deteriorates

1990 **Sam & Sarah are placed in a foster home **(Sam is 13, Sarah 16)

1991 Sam starts boxing after being taken under the wing of Father Michael, meets Frank

1995 **Kate joins TOPD **as a detective after specialized college program in criminology/psychology

1996 **Sam graduates from the police academy**, his mom dies shortly after the ceremony; **Andy's mom leaves when she's 12 **

2002 Kenneth Thomson steps down as Chair of Thomson Corp, handing control over to David; Kenneth buys Rubens' _The Slaughter of the Innocents _for $117 million, donating it & 2,000 other artworks to the Art Gallery of Ontario

2005 **Kate leaves TOPD to begin studies at McGill at age 31 after brief romance with Sam**

2006 Kate' grandfather **Kenneth Thomson dies **in his office of an apparent heart attack

2009 **Andy graduates from the academy **and starts as a rookie, blows Sam's cover 1st day

2012 Present (Sam is 35, Andy is 28, Kate is 38, Sarah is 39, Kate's mom is 58, Kate's dad is 71, Sam's Dad is 63, still in prison due to infractions rigged by warden to extend his already lengthy sentence)


	20. Chapter 20: First Reactions

**Author's Note: **A couple people asked about Sam's age in the timeline from last chapter. Based on everything that's been in the canon show, I would have sworn that Sam is 37 or 38. (I don't have evidence for this, but I get the impression he took the minimum required college courses before entering the academy, so he might be a year or two younger than the rest of the crew he started with as a rookie, just like Traci is younger than the rest of the rookies. But that would still make him at least 37). But a fan asked the showrunner, Tassie Cameron, a week or so ago, and Tassie tweeted that "Andy is 28-ish now, Swarek's mid 30s." So I went with 35 because it suited my story not to have Sam's dad having gone to jail as late as possible in my timeline.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 20: First Reaction**

He'd thought the first time she ripped his world apart was rough. But this… How the hell was he going find a way to right things enough to live with himself without taking on a suicide mission? Should he really just sit back and trust Kate to go through her parents to get his dad out? Could he live with doing nothing more than that?

* * *

*next morning*

"Come on in and have a seat Sam. What did you want to see me about?" Frank motions Sam into his office.

"I think I'm interested in that detective's slot. When would you want me to start?" Sam says without preamble.

"Actually, I could use you to help out as soon as tomorrow. You won't actually get the title until you finish a couple night courses. But the temporary guy who took over from Luke is threatening to walk if I don't get him some relief soon. He can't cover all the interrogations we need and get cases closed, and he's fed up with how it's affecting his stats. Nash has been under too much pressure to stay late to help ease the burden, and it's affecting her family situation.

But are you sure you're ready to make the move that soon? You've been great since you came back from working with Kate. But you seem a little tense this morning. I can give you a few more days to make the transition if you want," Frank tries to get a read on what's got his friend wound so tight.

"No, tomorrow's good actually. I'm fine. I'm just wondering how to break it to Oliver," Sam deflects. "Are you staffed up so that I could ride with him today if this is going to be my last day in uniform?"

"Sure, no problem. And don't worry about Shaw. He thinks this move is a good plan for you too," Frank breaks his Sargeant's demeanor long enough to shoot Sam a quick smile. "Glad you decided to take the position. We need you there. I'll see you in Parade in few."

Frank sits back and watches Sam head off to suit up for the last time. He wonders what he's missing here. He'd expected to have to sell the idea a little harder before Sam made a final choice. Maybe Kate's still just better at pushing the right buttons, but something seems a little off about this…

* * *

"Brother, I don't know if I should be flattered or offended," Shaw deadpans.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Sam asks, frowning.

"First time we've ridden together for months, and you don't argue when I want to drive. I'm touched. But then you sit there all tense and moody, like the honeymoon of being back on patrol has worn off already. I thought you'd be happier to see me," Shaw jokes.

"Funny you should mention that. I uh, I told Frank this morning that I would take that slot with the Ds," Sam says, glancing over at Oliver to catch his reaction.

Shaw shoots him a quick grin, "Really? That's great man. What's the problem then? You're not afraid I'm upset about it are you? Cuz I'm not. I think it's a great move for you," Oliver assures him sincerely.

"It's not that. It's just…"

"What, are you starting to miss me already?" Oliver smirks. "I mean, you're not having second thoughts are you?" Oliver asks more seriously.

"Well, maybe a little. I'm still not convinced it won't be too much paperwork and ass kissing, no matter how Frank says he wants to use me there. But that's not it really," Sam shrugs.

"What then?"

"Well, I actually do have something personal to run by you." Sam says hesitantly.

Oliver shoots him a pointed glance and chuckles under his breath remembering the last time they had a conversation like this when the shoe was on the other foot.

Sam snorts, "No, it does not have anything to do with hoisting the sail."

"OK, brother. Whatever you say," Shaw says in his most patronizing voice, unable to resist a little payback along with trying to lighten the mood a little.

Sam sighs, "Look, this is serious, OK. It doesn't have anything to do with women. Well, other than the fact that the information came from Kate."

Oliver shoots Sam a concerned look, "We didn't do wrong bringing her around, did we? I mean, you've seemed a lot better after you started working on that training project with her. It seemed like it got you back on track. Things didn't get weird or complicated with her, did they?"

"No, it's nothing like that. I'm over it. She's crazy about Danny, and I really like him too," Sam says firmly.

"OK, so…. What's the issue then?" Oliver asks curiously.

"It's… old family stuff. She told me some things about our parents that basically turned everything I thought I knew about my family upside down. And I just…I need someone I can trust to bounce things off while I decide what to do about it. About the Connollys."

"_Do_ about the Connollys? Sammy, c'mon, man. There's nothing _you_ can do about the Connollys. Brother, this sounds like a heavy conversation that we need to have when I'm not driving a squad car. And we need to have it before you even start getting any crazy ideas.

I was going to call the gang to give you a send off at the Penny tonight. But this can't wait. We'll celebrate your first day with the Ds instead. I'm coming over to your place tonight, and you're going to fill me in when I can look you in the eye and tell you how nuts whatever you're considering is," Oliver insists.

Sam sighs, "OK. Yeah, tonight's good."

Oliver nods in satisfaction, "Good. Let's go get some lunch then."

Sam shakes his head but smiles fondly, "At least some things never change."

* * *

**AN: **I decided to break this chapter in half to get something out a little quicker. Plus, something short and light seemed like a good follow up to that monster heavy chapter I threw at you last time.

Some of you have asked when Andy will reappear. There are a couple more conversations Sam needs to have with Oliver and Kate first. But Andy will be back from her taskforce soon after that.


	21. Chapter 21: Brotherhood

**Author's Note: **Oliver's up first to give some of his Shawesome words of wisdom.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 21: Brotherhood**

"I'm coming over to your place tonight, and you're going to fill me in when I can look you in the eye and tell you how nuts whatever you're considering is," Oliver insists.

Sam sighs, "OK. Yeah, tonight's good."

Oliver nods in satisfaction, "Good. Let's go get some lunch then."

Sam shakes his head but smiles fondly, "At least some things never change."

* * *

"Come on in, buddy," Sam says, trying not to show he's not sure confiding in Oliver is a good idea.

"Happy to lend an ear. It's good to have a friend in high places. I'm even buying," Shaw says, raising the six pack of Sam's favorite microbrew.

Sam snorts, "Whatever. Don't start treating me like one of the prima donna Ds already."

"Hey, man. We all have our burdens to bear. Just because you managed a deal where you don't have to wear a suit, doesn't mean I won't have to work to keep you from getting a big head. You were cocky enough when you were riding patrol," Shaw teases, following Sam into the house.

"It's only cockiness if you're not good," Sam counters with a smug grin.

"Is that what you've been telling yourself? I guess we all write our own scripts to get through the days. Cheers, brother," Shaw says, after Sam hands him one of the beers after stowing the rest in the fridge.

After they settle on the couch, he continues, "Seriously, though. I'll miss your surly mug on the street helping me keep the kids in line. But you're gonna make out just fine in your new slot. We could use someone with good street sense helping Nash out. They've had a hard time filling all the missing shoes."

"No one's gonna fill Jerry's shoes," Sam say sadly.

"No, I know. But I think he'd be glad that you'll be working with her there. You know, they had some growing pains in their relationship too when he had to be her direct supervisor. You and McNally weren't the only ones," Shaw observed.

"I know. Kate thinks it might make things easier. You know, when McNally gets back," Sam admits, glancing at Shaw from the corner of his eyes.

"Is that why you agreed to do it? Oliver asks curiously.

"Not exactly. Well, yeah, I guess that's partly why," Sam shrugs. "It can't hurt anyway. Trying to pretend we could ride together just like always didn't work out so well. So… why not try something different?"

"Just tell me the rest of the reason isn't that you'll be in a better position to pursue some freelance agenda that's likely to make me attend another friend's funeral. I can't take that again any time soon," Oliver says, turning his tone dead serious.

Sam sighs, "OK. I guess we might as well get right into it then. Let's just say I might want to reserve the option down the road. Look, I don't know if it's right to lay even the basics of this on you. But I need someone without an agenda to help me think this through a little. And you're the _only_ person I think I can trust."

"Sammy, I'm here because I _want_ to be the voice of reason. I know I wasn't there the way I should have been after the Brennan thing. I should have noticed you didn't bounce back the way you pretended and that he worked you over more than you let on. And I feel even worse about that because you were there for me in my worst, weakest moment. So don't sweat this for a minute. Sharing is a big step for you," Shaw teases before turning serious again.

"Seriously though, let me do something to keep you from doing something unwise for family reasons. You said that whatever is bothering you has to do with whatever went down between your dad and the Connollys all those years ago, right?" Oliver pauses and hopes Sam won't change his mind and keep things to himself like usual.

Sam nods, "Yeah. Well, you know what my Dad plead to, right?"

Oliver nods, but stays silent.

"When I was really little, my mom insisted he was innocent and that we needed to keep faith in him. She was always trying to come up with a way out for him. By the time I was ten, I had big plans to be a lawyer and do it myself. But he told me flat out that he did it, and not to waste my time. He was so convincing. I figured from then that my mom was just blind to his faults. It never occurred to me that _he_ was the one lying to me…" Sam swallows thickly.

"From then on, I mostly just tried to forget him. Otherwise, I just got too mad watching how the consequences of what he did took a toll on my mother and sister. I just tried to do what I could to make things better for them. When the system said that I couldn't do that either, I turned into a punk for a while. But a priest go a hold of me, and talked me into at least channeling the frustration into something less self-destructive. Like trying to beat the crap out of Frank in the boxing ring. Which, I even managed to do a couple times," Sam pauses to give Oliver a self-deprecating smile.

"But now… Kate told me last night that my father didn't actually do what ended up in the pleas deal. She said he took the job thinking it was legitimate, and only found evidence of dirty money flowing through the books after he'd been working there a while. As soon as he was pretty sure he'd gotten indirectly caught up with a business connected to the Irish mob, he went to the police. But apparently the detective working with him talked him into getting more evidence before any warrants and subpoenas were issued. He was probably right that the Connolly's would be tipped and destroy anything else there before they knocked on the door. But the asshole asked my dad to do stuff he wasn't equipped to pull off. And then he left him hanging with no protection while another bust went down early.

The Connollys caught wind of it and got to him before he turned over the new documents. Kate said her dad first wanted to kill my dad and bury everything, but her mom talked him into threatening my Dad instead. So they doctored everything to make it look like his original evidence was forged. They told him to cave under pressure and 'admit' to his handler that he'd made the whole thing up to get into witness protection because he thought he was about to be caught skimming some book making cash that was being laundered through the firm. The illegal gambling scheme was just small time stuff, not leading to any big mafia activity.

The detective, Steve Peck's godfather no less, piled on a bunch of charges on top of the original supposed money laundering and theft because he didn't like being jerked around. Because of the threat against us, Dad agreed to a plea deal with very long term. All this time I thought he did it. He _told_ me he did it, and I believed him," Sam shudders and looks over with pained eyes before continuing.

"Oliver, I just found out that he's been stuck in jail for over 30 years for something he didn't do. After things fell apart and Sarah and I went to our foster family, the few times I went to visit him… I didn't try to hide my contempt. I blamed him for everything, and now it turns out he was just an honest guy trying to do the right thing who got in over his head." Sam slumps forward, elbows on his knees, and rubs his hands over his face.

He straightens and then continues, "I always thought he agreed to such a shitty plea deal instead of going to trial because he was playing the good foot soldier taking a fall for the Connollys somehow. That they agreed to let him go to jail instead of killing him for stealing from them if he agreed not to rat them out for anything serious. I don't know. Maybe I just didn't want to think about it too seriously. I never even looked into his file to check the details out," Sam leans back against the sofa, closing his eyes tiredly.

"Kate said she thinks the last incident that got a new five-year sentence added to his term was some bullshit thing cooked up by the warden. Who, wouldn't you know it, is on the Connolly payroll. Dad's got a parole hearing coming up next month. She says she thinks she can get her father to lean on him to make sure he's released. I guess that really means she can talk her mother into getting him to do it.

So I guess that's what I should let her do it's just… Kate's known about this for _seven years_. She went along with everyone else keeping this from me and letting him continue to rot in that place. I don't' know if I can trust her anymore. And even if I can, even if there's an explanation and her intentions are in the right place, all the information she finally came clean and told me is coming from her mother. Who knows what's still been left out?"

"Brother, I don't think you have any choice. There's nothing you could do on your own to make things happen any faster for your Dad, right? So why not see if this is a legitimate offer of help, and if Kate can pull off getting her parents to intervene? I assume she's got more leverage with them than anyone, and if they put him in there, they probably are in the best position to get him out. Does she have a plan for doing this without tipping them that you know the real story?" Oliver asks, worried.

"Yeah, she said she'll tell them that after working with me for a couple months, she can't stand the guilt of knowing about Dad's situation any more. Her mom stopped by her office when I was there for a final visit. She seemed concerned about the two of us spending time together again. Maybe she knew Kate would have trouble keeping all the secrets. Maybe Kate plans to threatened just that if they don't do something for Dad. I don't know exactly. I'd sure as hell like to know why she didn't do that before, and what's changed," Sam says, gritting his teeth.

"I don't blame you there, brother. But focus on your Dad first. Keep her as an ally on this at least until he's out. Ask her the questions you need, but don't burn the bridge until you give this a chance. Then you can decide if you're willing to forgive her and have anything to do with her. And don't start looking into anything else until you get as much information as you can from her, and you see how this parole hearing goes.

These are serious players, Sammy. I don't have to tell you that. But listen. You don't know who they have as paid moles on the force…." Shaw pauses, running one nervous hand over the side of his face.

"Alright, look. I've never told _anyone_ this. But you know my old partner, Patrick Murphy? Apparently, he was one of Connolly's low level guys. They have a thing, they call them sleepers. It's street coppers who are paid what amounts to two overtime shifts a month. Supposedly, if you take the deal, you're just there as insurance. All you have to do is keep your eyes open to any major threat to the Connolly organization. That's it. You're not asked to do anything else, or so the story goes.

So Patrick came to me and asked if I wanted in. Zoe and I were having money problems and she was on me for working too much overtime back then. I'm ashamed to admit that I actually considered it for about a day. It would have made life a lot easier. But then I came to my senses. It sounded like a deal that was too good to be true, and I wasn't about to sell my soul or take the chance that once I was in some day, they'd come back asking more for the money invested. I figured once they have leverage, who knows what might happen.

Anyway, things were never the same with Patrick after that. He claimed he'd say he decided not to pitch the deal to me rather than tell the Connollys that he'd tried and I turned it down. I didn't turn him in to IA, but every day we were out on the street, I doubted that a little. I was also afraid the deal he'd taken wasn't as simple as he thought, and that sooner or later he'd ask me to make some compromise because of who he was in bed with. The day he took that bullet, I wondered after the fact if it intended for me. Then I started wondering, did I hesitate a moment because of that, which made it necessary for him to throw himself in harms way? It's corrosive, man. It gets in your head. So I hate what the Connollys do to trust on the force too.

But my point was that even I was tempted for a minute. You don't know who else might have given in if approached. So right now, sit tight. Let things with Kate play out, and don't tell anyone else about this OK? Not even Frank or Noelle. And don't use police resources to start looking into anything, at least until your Dad is out."

Sam lets out a long sigh, "I know you're right. And it's not like I'm the blind hot head everyone seems worried I'd be. It's like they thought if I knew I'd be like Russell Crowe in LA Confidential, throwing chairs through windows and dangling weasel detectives or DAs out windows or something. I know life isn't like the movies. But I'm just so sick of this whole mentality of giving them a pass because whoever takes over will be worse," Sam says, his hands balling into fists.

"You know, I used to give McNally the dirt bag food chain lecture whenever she would bitch about plea deals," Sam laughs bitterly. "Well, I'm not so on board with just accepting it as the way the world works anymore."

"I know, brother. It sucks. But this is the king of all dirt bags we're talking here. A family doesn't stay at the top of that food chain, with very few foot soldiers getting pinched without being smart and careful. Right now, the whole police hierarchy is comfortable with the way things are. You can't start making _any_ sort of moves rashly. I know you're emotions are probably running hot, and you want t _do_ something. Believe me, I of all people get that.

But you've got to ride that out. I'm sure they didn't think you go all Russell Crowe or try to be Serpico or something. That's not what I'm talking about either. But Sammy, I know you. You do feel like it's always on you to make things right for those you're close to. So it's not completely crazy for them to worry that you would be compelled to try more subtle but still insanely risky means to take matters into your own hands. You're mad that everyone kept all this from you because they were afraid of what might happen. Well, then prove them wrong. Prove that you can handle the truth, keep your cool, and sit tight. That's the best advice I can give you right now. Promise me," Shaw says, dead serious.

"Yeah, OK…for now anyway," Sam agrees, expelling a frustrated breath.

"Good," Shaw says, clapping him on the shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "Otherwise, I might have to kick your ass myself."

"Look, you don't have to worry. You told me not to confide in anyone else. Well, I'm telling you the same thing. Don't go pulling in Frank or anyone else because you think you need backup to protect me from myself. This needs to stay just in this room," Sam looks Oliver in the eye to make sure he knows this secret is right up there with the Izzy incident.

"Of course. Sammy, I promise this is just between us. I've got your back. I can't do anything that will put my family at risk. But what you told me tonight is just between the two of us," Shaw meets Sam's gaze squarely and steadily.

Just then the doorbell rings. "I'll get it. I should be heading home anyway. Things are finally good with Zoe again, so I'm trying not to come home too late these days," Shaw says, getting up and stretching.

"Thanks for coming by, man," Sam says, giving Oliver a quick man hug before trailing him to the door.

Just as Sam thought, Kate was waiting on his front porch. He exchanges raised brows with Oliver, who makes some brief small talk with her before begging off to head home.

"I guess I should have expected a visit tonight. We do have some unfinished business," Sam says, trying to keep his tone even.

Kate shuffles nervously, "Yeah. I, um, didn't think I should stay last night. But I don't want to just leave things hanging either. I'm sure you have more questions. Or maybe you just want to tell me off," Kate grimaces. "Anyway, I thought I should give you the chance to do both…and I wanted to make sure you're OK. So… I hope it's alright that I came here."

"It's fine," Sam says shortly. "Come on in. There are a few things I'd like to get straight, as a matter of fact," Sam turns on his heel and leaves Kate to close the door and follow him inside.

* * *

**AN: **OK, I expect the temptation of Oliver Shaw angle might be a little controversial. We'll see what you all say.


	22. Chapter 22: Loose Ends

**Author's Note: **Once again for those missing Andy, this has always been more Sam's story, and he has a few more things to get sorted out before he's got himself together enough to make a go of things when Andy comes back. But he's almost there, and so are we, after he's had a few last confrontations.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot! Special shout out to vixenali, evelinav, snapple79, kmart79, dcj, RBCrazyFan, RBRedux, Tiger, and linda_p for particularly detailed and/or frequent reviews.

**Chapter 22: Loose Ends**

"It's fine," Sam says shortly. "Come on in. There are a few things I'd like to get straight, as a matter of fact," Sam turns on his heel and leaves Kate to close the door and follow him inside.

* * *

Kate takes a seat while Sam paces around restlessly.

"Tell me again why you think you can get him out," Sam says abruptly.

Kate lets out the breath she'd been holding. This she can answer, "Because I already got my mother to agree to it before I came over here last night. I convinced her that your father has paid more than enough, and that it was time they made some real effort to put an end to it. She was sure she could convince my father to lean on the warden."

"If it was that easy, why didn't you get her to do that when you first found out? Forget for now the fact that you walked out on me and went along with keeping me in the dark about what really put Dad behind bars in the first place," Sam shoots Kate a hard stare as he walks over to stand in front of the arm chair where she's sitting. "What I really want to know is how you could stand by and leave him stuck in there?" Sam asks, leaning forward to brace his arms on the arms of the chair.

Kate swallows uncomfortably and shrinks back into the chair a little, knowing this was her own biggest failing. "I tried. But back then, my mother made it seem like it was impossible. She thought the fact that I was pushing for it meant I wanted to try to salvage things with you, so she pulled out all the stops to make me believe getting a new parole hearing was beyond what they could get the warden to do."

Sam lets out an impatient snort, but he backs off and straightens away from her personal space to start pacing again while she continues.

"I know this sounds weak, but your Dad's original sentence was up in two years anyway. I thought he'd be out then, so it seemed like it was yet another thing I'd just have to live with. Especially when my father stepped in and said if I didn't stop upsetting my mother, he'd make sure there were no more Swarek men to worry about period. Probably he was bluffing, but my father is not a man whose threats anyone takes lightly, not even me," Kate sighs, staring down at her fidgeting hands to avoid meeting his eyes.

"But now that they know how solid things are between Danny and I, it's different. When they got back from wintering in Antigua and found out I'd been treating you at the lab, my mother was, of course, a little concerned that something might be rekindled. But once I put that to rest, I found out I have more leverage with her than I ever thought. It was easier to convince her that I'm just pushing the issue again because it's the right thing to do. I think my mom still does have an uneasy conscience about your Dad anyway, even if my father doesn't seem to. So she admitted it can be done, and it didn't take much convincing to get her to really try to persuade my father to take action for the sake of keeping peace in the family, if nothing else.

I stopped by their place on the way over here. She's already convinced him to lean on the warden, if he thinks the matter will be closed, once and for all. He's even fine with Mom's big plan to turn over the deed to the house your Dad lost unfairly. It doesn't even begin to make up for what your Dad suffered, but you know how trendy Cabbagetown has become. The house is worth almost a million dollars now."

Kate sighs at how awful that sounds, "I know it must turn your stomach to even hear it spoken about this way, But, Sam, please. For your Dad's sake, please let them think this is the way the situation is being handled.

Once he's out, you can decide whether or not to let the past lie. I hope for your sake you'll ultimately be able to let it go. But... I know you'll at least have questions about how his case got handled. But don't go get his file out of the archives. If you want, I'll propose a new training module that looks at plea bargains. I can order case files for outlier low and high sentences to look for interesting case studies. I'll keep a copy of everything about your Dad's case in my lab. Scratch that. I'll leave the boxes sealed and let you copy it yourself so you trust that you're seeing the whole thing. That should make sure you can see it without raising any red flags from any of my father's police sources.

Because whatever my father says, he'll probably still watch you closely again for a few months, so be careful. I had a military intel officer whose brother I treated sweep this place for bugs before I came over to tell you everything last night. But don't assume the house will stay clean forever. And don't trust any burner cell phones sold in the greater Toronto area either."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. You did _what_ to this place?" Sam shouts, incredulous.

"Sammy, I'm sorry for the violation. But this is no game. I had no reason to think he's been spying on you prior to my mother stopping by. But I don't know exactly when my parents got word in France that you were working with me at the lab. So I couldn't be sure he wasn't either."

Sam grits his teeth, but doesn't interrupt her attempt to justify this latest stunt.

"I wasn't sure telling you everything was a good idea in the first place. I definitely wasn't going to risk my parents having any information that might put you at risk. And I wanted to break the news in your comfort zone. Here's the guy's card. You can trust him. If you ever need to make sure a room is clean and don't want to go through the department, call him. You're not going to have to be this paranoid forever, but from now until at least few months after your Dad is out, you have to assume you're being monitored closely.

And remember what I said about burner phones, not just your existing phones. It's important. That's the Connolly syndicate's big secret weapon keeping a step ahead of his competition. Every person in the city who thinks they're using an anonymous, untraceable mobile phone is actually potentially feeding intel to my Dad. If a person of interest goes into a mom & pop store, a hidden camera is taking a photo. One of the minor chips in the hardware can be activated remotely to turn the phone into a mic, even if the phone is just on standby. That's the crown jewel secret, along with the database stuff, of how he hangs onto power and stops any move against him before it ever happens. Consider it a final gesture to let you know you can trust me. It's not much, but it's all I can do at this point," Kate shrugs.

"How does someone who's stayed out of the family business know that? And why do you trust me to make the right choices now, if you were so sure I wouldn't when we were actually together?" Sam asks, eyes narrowed as he watches her carefully.

"I overheard more than anyone thought when I was a moody teenager. I caught fragments of conversations about a chip factory in Taiwan undercutting the market to dominate supply to lower end phones and others about intercepted plans. Once I was at college and on the force, I figured out what they were doing.

And it's not that _I_ didn't trust you then. But everyone else thought you were better off not knowing. And I really was worried that if I told you, somehow my Dad would know, no matter what, and might actually hurt you or kill you. And I also didn't want you to be torn about what was right because you had feelings for me…" Kate trails off and risks meeting Sam's eyes.

"Look, I don't excuse anything they did to your family or anyone else. But even today, I'm not completely sure I'd want to see my family to be taken down, even if it was possible. But I do know that I want you to be free to make your decisions about what to do without my feelings having any bearing on it. That wouldn't have been possible if we were still an item. You remember how things were that week. If I had told you everything then… It's too much, Sam. It would have been too much. It's complicated enough now."

Sam sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose for a minute before looking up to respond, "Alright then. Let's talk about how things are gonna go now. First, no more taking it on yourself to make any more unannounced security checks. From now on, stay out of things. Or at least don't do _anything_ other than going forward with getting my Dad out without coming to me first. Second, Dad doesn't know how bad Sarah's attack really was…unless you said something when you went to visit him…"

"No. I didn't know how much he knew, so I didn't bring that up." Kate assures him.

"Good. I want it to stay that way. Even when I resented him most, I agreed with Mom that he didn't need to know just how badly Sarah was hurt when he wasn't around to protect her. That sure doesn't need to change now. I also want you to stick with leaving that all in the past with Sarah too. You've kept the subject the way it always was between the two of you. Don't change that because your conscience suddenly has a flare up some day," Kate's ashen, stricken face causes him to pause and soften his hard tone slightly.

"Look, I wish you weren't so reckless that night, but you were just a kid when it happened. And you were the one who showed all the other kids how to act around her afterward. That did a lot to help her come out of her shell. I don't blame you for what happened. I blame your father for not controlling rumors. Considering that his reputation was the whole point of locking my father up and ripping my family apart, you'd think he would have made sure the story was straight with everyone on the street," Sam says, lips twisting bitterly, as his voice hardens again. It's the most absolution he can bring himself to offer, so he plows ahead to his final demand.

"Finally, if your mother really wants to use the Cabbagetown house to clear her conscience, fine. He deserves to come home to something good and familiar. To be able to wake up every day and see how right he was about that neighborhood's future. But I want to meet her there to take over the deed myself. I don't want either her or your father to have any contact with my father at all. Not about that or anything else. Can you get her to agree to that?" Sam asks, brows raised.

"Sure. But, Sammy. Are you sure that's a good idea? Do you really want to be in the same room with her without being able to fully give her a piece of your mind?" Kate asks, concerned that the confrontation will either be more upsetting than cathartic…or that Sam will lose his temper and give away too much.

"It's non-negotiable. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing, Kate," Sam stares her down.

Kate releases a long sigh, "Oookay," she agrees reluctantly. "I think it's a bad idea, but if that's what you want, I'll set it up."

"Good," Sam nods. "Call me with the time. Now, if you don't mind, it's been a long day," he motions toward the door.

"Sam…" Kate starts, her breath catching.

Sam raises a hand to cut her off, "Not now, Kate. Please, let's just leave it here. I'm not ready to get into more apologies or explanations. And I'm sure not ready to say if any of whatever friendship we rebuilt the last couple months is going to survive this. It's too soon for that, OK? Just set up the meeting with your mom and make sure they're really going to get that parole hearing to go the right way."

Kate just nods, "OK," she agrees, and gets up to leave.

"Oh, and… go ahead with proposing that plea bargain training module, and let me know if that works as a way to get Dad's file out of records without suspicion."

Kate turns to look at him closely, trying to read what that last request means. But his expression is shuttered and unreadable. So she just nods a second time, and walks out the door.

* * *

**AN: **So, just to keep you posted, Sam has to face Catherine Connolly and his Dad before he's ready for Andy's return.


	23. Chapter 23: Karma

**Author's Note: **I have to credit evelinav again for this chapter because she suggested I include a confrontation between Sam and Catherine Connolly. I had planned to just do a short time jump to Sam meeting with his Dad for the first time after learning the truth. But this was actually kind of a fun, challenging interaction to write.

A couple things about last chapter: At least one person asked about what Sarah knows. To clarify, Sarah doesn't know who attacked her or why. (too dark, they wore masks, take your pick) I haven't said one way or the other if she knew more than Sam about their father's innocence. No one called me on it, but I realized later that I screwed up my own timeline a little. Kate said Sam's Dad only had two years left on his original sentence when she found out the truth, but he actually had five. So, assume that in rationalizing things to herself, over time her memory evolves: five means a few, which becomes a couple, and solidifies as two when she's justifying herself to Sam.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

* * *

**Chapter 23: Karma**

"Oh, and… go ahead with proposing that plea bargain training module, and let me know if that works as a way to get Dad's file out of records without suspicion."

Kate turns to look at him closely, trying to read what that last request means. But his expression is shuttered and unreadable. So she just nods a second time, and walks out the door.

* * *

Sam gets out of his truck and leans against it, looking across the street at the Victorian house he was supposed to grow up in. He'd never allowed himself to dwell on all the what ifs and might have beens, so he's actually never come by to see it before. He has to admit, his parents had good taste. It's the best house on the best lot in the entire neighborhood. Victorian houses weren't really his style, but there was something about this one… Maybe his parents' old dream of buying early into a turnaround area tugged at him a little after all. Sam scuffs his foot restlessly at the thought.

He'd thought about showing up late, just to leave Catherine Connolly cooling her heels for a while. But in the end he was too keyed up and anxious, so he'd ended up coming a few minutes early instead. For a minute he wishes he was a smoker, so he'd have something to distract himself. He settles on punishing some chewing gum instead.

As it turns out, he doesn't have long to wait. A black Mercedes pulls up right on the dot of their appointed meeting time, and her driver gets out to open the door for his charge. Sam wonders if she's wary enough of him to have the body guard tag along for this meeting, but she waves the man back into the car.

Sam eyes her for a minute as she looks across the street with a raised brow before levering himself up from his position leaning against his truck to walk across the street. Catherine Connolly is turned out in the same easy elegance she always had. If she really lied about her age like Kate said, she must be in her late 50s, but she looks better than most women in their early 40s. She still dresses with a classic edge to the latest trends too. No overdone fur on a day with the first hint of spring in the air.

Sam can actually recognize the designer pedigree of her cashmere coat and Italian shoes, thanks to an long slog on a case busting a major knock-off ring. He still thinks Kate pulled him into that one just to watch him have to plow through endless details he could care less about that distinguished real luxury goods from fakes.

Anyway, that had always been the thing that threw people off balance about Catherine Connolly. The way she seems like she should be the queen of the country club set, or better yet the pinnacle of the arts patrons who control Toronto's cultural institutions. Now that he knows her story, he supposes she's consciously or unconsciously mimicking the way her own mother carries herself. But it still makes it hard to believe she's the matriarch of a crime family. One side of Sam's mouth quirks with an irritated ironic smile as he acknowledges that she's always known how to put on a good show.

"Detective, I'm so pleased you're interested in the house, but I was surprised you wanted to speak to me directly," Catherine smiles but is wise enough not to try an air kiss on Sam, settling instead for extending her hand, which Sam decides to take after briefly considering leaving her hanging.

"I'm not a Detective yet, and this isn't a social call to thank you, Mrs. Connolly," Sam corrects her.

"No, of course not. I never imagined that that was what's on your mind," Catherine had the good grace to at least blush at the allusion to the sins that could never be erased. "Shall we go in the house before you tell me what _is_ on your mind?"

"After you," Sam says with a mocking take on the old school chivalry he figures she naturally evokes from most men.

She quirks an intrigued brow as if for once she can't quite get a read on an adversary's agenda, before turning to lead the way up the flag stone path.

"I had a good cleaning crew come through and freshen up the place. I've been leasing it to reputable people from Hollywood who are in town for various film projects. No one who throws wild parties or anything. But I furnished it for that sort of client not too long ago in what I thought would be the updated version of what I remember about how your mother had things, hoping…"

Sam laughs harshly, "Yeah I guess an absence of more than 30 years would mean that however things used to be would be pretty dated by now." His gaze rakes the rooms, and he imagines the open layout is much different from the original. He doesn't want to admit that it looks beautiful.

The thought of Catherine Connolly trying to guess his mother's taste to make things familiar and nice, but not a time warp, for his father eats at him. He's reminded all over again about her pathological hovering in the background of their lives, pulling little strings to ease her conscience, while never doing the main thing that might have really made things better.

Catherine winces, but doesn't try to reply to that directly. Instead, she asks, "Would you rather I had all of this moved out? I just thought he might find dealing with furnishing a home a little overwhelming…"

"No, it's fine. Furnished is better. I'm just curious why you're so concerned about his well being at this late date," Sam cuts her off, eying her closely.

"I… ," Catherine swallows, not sure what to say.

Sam doesn't wait for her to complete the thought before continuing, "I'm wondering why you've concerned yourself with my family for _years, _without ever lifting a finger to do the one thing that would have really mattered to us. And yet now Kate tells me that making sure Dad gets a fair parole hearing isn't so impossible after all. Was the difference really just a matter of whether she and I might be a couple? Am I supposed to believe you were just afraid of awkward holiday dinners or something?"

"Why not?" Catherine shrugs.

"Kate hadn't done holiday dinners with your family for years before anything happened between us. And she hasn't been to any since she married Danny either. Try again," Sam says, folding his arms impatiently.

"Sam, my husband had been in control of his family's holdings for only about five years when the incident with your father came up. When a businessman is newly ascended, his reputation isn't fully formed. Rivals and subordinates are tempted to test his mettle. It's very important to discourage any such impulses by taking decisive early action to avoid more even messier situations down the line."

Sam snorts, "Businessman? Is that what you tell yourself?"

"I'll tell you exactly what I tell business associates, university deans, bishops, police commissioners, city councilmen, and the Mayor," Catherine replies in a smooth but steely tone. "Rumors about my husband's continued involvement in the more colorful aspects of his family's past business dealings are greatly exaggerated. His influence on the community in which we live is largely positive and contributes to the overall stability and vibrancy of the city."

"And anyone who gets in the way of this supposed benevolent dictatorship is just collateral damage?"

"Yes," Catherine replies without hesitation, meeting Sam's eyes steadily. "At the time it happened, the perceived futility of either an ambitious rival or a zealous young detective trying to get ahead at my husband's expense wasn't widely established. A clear signal needed to be sent. The primary culprit was so distraught at his own error, he 'committed suicide,' another employee who overstepped, your father, suffered a fall from grace and a prison term, and a misguided detective was humiliated for chasing tall tales that only led to a distant relative who hadn't fully shed the old Connolly ways.

It seemed like the minimum credible response a strong leader could take when a lack of organizational discipline led to a series of threats. You ask why I continued to concern myself with tinkering around the edges to cushion the worst collateral damage? Well, the sentence was harsher than expected. I misjudged the ego of the detective involved, and he took his wounded pride out on the target he could actually reach, your father.

I also misjudged the reason my husband agreed to the plan. You see, when few of your men get arrested, the few who do are quite vulnerable on the inside. If you want to be able to promise protection, you have to control the warden and the guards. Your father had accounting skills that were quite useful to the warden. So my husband was quite happy with the long sentence, and for once immune to my efforts to persuade him to intervene.

But the image of what your family was like before all of the responses were set in motion is still burned into my memory, and it won't let go. So, I did what I could do. Which turned out not to be much. Your mother considered anything from me to be an insulting bit of salt in the wound, and I understood that. I thought her pride unfairly burdened you in particular, but I understood. And I knew she would have rolled over in her grave at the thought that you might end up marrying my daughter. I thought the two of you hadn't thought things through. The whole Romeo and Juliet thing might seem romantic, but relationships blending families with histories like ours don't end well.

I'm sure Kate has at least told you that I was the one who convinced her to end things or you wouldn't have been willing to put yourself in her hands for a couple months. So this is it. The parole and this house are the final things I can do."

"This house, I'm agreeing to this for him. Because _he_ deserves it after all he's been through. But this doesn't get to be your ticket to redemption, OK? Kate did tell me that you showed up in Antigua and convinced her to leave without any real explanation. She told me two other things as well. The truth about who attacked Sarah, and about who your family really is, Shirley."

Catherine's eyes fly to his, wide with shock.

"I'm sorry for what you went through, I am. But what kind of mother are you? My guess is that you made Kate feel worse than she should when you told her the truth about Sarah. That's what you knew would make her leave, wasn't it? Did it even occur to you that we might have been really been in love before you took it upon yourself to tear that apart?"

"I knew you were in love. It wasn't a question of that. But I also knew the two of you would be a disaster if you stayed together longer. Now Kate has Danny, and I understand you have someone new too…"

Sam slams his hand down on the kitchen island. "That wasn't your place to decide! You've spent so long manipulating people, you have no sense boundaries at all. I don't know exactly why you decided to marry Joe Connolly, whatever warped sense of security you needed when you were young, or what stories you've invented to rationalize staying with him and having a family with him. But he's no mere businessman, and the collateral damage a man like that inflicts…" Sam trails off hoarsely for a minute before finishing, eyes boring into her remorselessly, "There _is_ no redemption for any of that. So just give me the deed and the keys, but don't kid yourself that this makes up for anything."

Catherine reaches a shaky hand into her bag to hand over a thick manila envelope. "Everything is there. The property taxes have been prepaid for 20 years, so your Dad doesn't have to worry about that either." After a pause, she adds, "I never thought this absolved me, you know. But if it makes you feel any better, karma is catching up with my husband. He has terminal cancer. I'm sure he would prefer to go out with a bullet, but he's going to die a slow, painful death as his strength leaves him slowly. I made him promise not to take a coward's way out to end it sooner.

I don't know if it makes any difference to you or not. But he's going to have plenty of time near the end for all the things he's done to haunt him as he looks in the mirror and watches his body decline toward his own death. Maybe it's not the same as actually facing the justice of a trial, but some might think God finally arranged a bit of poetic justice. My own father died from a quick heart attack when I finally faced him after I found out he did the same thing to my younger sister," Catherine blinked back the tears, and dropped the envelope on the island before walking out the door.

Sam watches her leave, feeling like he's been scrubbed raw from being lashed by a whirl of every conflicting emotion he's felt in his whole life in the space of a half hour. He wonders briefly how often Kate's parents have left her feeling this way. But mostly he wishes things hadn't fallen apart with Andy. He wants desperately to see her smile light up a room and make him feel like some of the basic optimism and faith in people she'd managed to hold onto could still rub off on him. His hands actually twitch with the need to bury themselves in her hair, and just pull her into a long comforting hug so he could take in the clean, familiar scent of her instead of the remaining traces of Catherine Connolly's expensive French perfume.

He wonders if the intensity with which he feels the absence of Andy's ability to make him feel better is what she was feeling when he withdrew from her so abruptly after Jerry died. Karma really is a bitch, he figures. The black humor of the situation might have made him feel better in other circumstances. Right now, he doesn't have the emotional distance to put his usual Swarek spin on any of it.

* * *

**AN: **OK, now that Sam has confronted most of the shadows from the past, things can begin an upswing. Dad first, then Andy.


	24. Chapter 24: Release

**Author's Note: **Thanks for hanging in. This is a pretty big, cathartic moment for Sam, trying to let go of some baggage to build a real relationship with his Dad for the first time.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 24: Release**

He wonders if the intensity with which he feels the absence of Andy's ability to make him feel better is what she was feeling when he withdrew from her so abruptly after Jerry died. Karma really is a bitch, he figures. The black humor of the situation might have made him feel better in other circumstances. Right now, he doesn't have the emotional distance to put his usual Swarek spin on any of it.

* * *

*One month later*

Sam resumes pacing around the Maplehurst parking lot for the third time, wondering if surprising his Dad was the right way to handle this, if only to keep himself from worrying that the delay might be caused by anything more than the basic inefficiency of prison operations.

This last half hour has pushed his nerves and patience nearly past his breaking point, and they'd already been stretched pretty thin this past month. Staying passively out of this whole process was harder than he'd thought. Studying for his detective's exam courses had actually been a God send, something he never would have believed. That, running, and heading over to Danny's music sessions at the university were about the only things that kept him sane. Fortunately, for his enjoyment of the latter, Kate had finally stopped giving him grief about how things went with her mother.

Just to pass the time, he thinks back to her less than pleased first reaction when she'd intercepted him on the way down to join the guys in the studio the next day:

"_Sammy, I need to talk to you for a minute," she'd hissed, pulling him into a small practice room. "What were you thinking? I knew that meeting was a bad idea. Do you __want__ them to monitor your calls and put a tail on you or something? Why did you let her lull you into saying I told you about Sarah?"_

"_Because I wanted to get a read on why she's acted the way she has, how strongly she would defend what was done, and if she had any real regrets about what she did to us. I didn't let on that I knew Dad was framed. But it's funny you focused on Sarah and didn't mention that I also told her I knew about her past. Why is that?" Sam had asked curiously. _

"_Because everyone knew how much what happened to Sarah tore you apart Sam. The fact that you know her attack was connected to the Connolly organization, even by mistake, is what's going to make her think of you as a potential threat," Kate explained._

"_Not the fact that I know her deep, dark secret? " Sam asked, surprised. "That's the part that I thought would rattle her."_

"_Well, I'm sure she wasn't thrilled that another person knows about that, or that it came up in conversation," Kate said dryly. _

"_But I don't think she's too worried that you might hold that over her, mostly because you're too decent to go for revenge that way. What keeps her up at night is that you might want to try to put my brothers behind bars. But even if she thought you were the type to go after her by leaking the story to some tabloid, it wouldn't bother her as much as you might think. I mean, she wouldn't love the global sensation and hounding from the media that would unleash on her. But she might feel like she deserves some payback. And knowing her, she'd land on her feet and reinvent herself as a Canadian version of a beleaguered Princess Diana, a fragile socialite who's been victimized by powerful families and out of control paparazzi," Kate rolled her eyes, but Sam could hear the sadness creep into her voice. _

"_Do you know when I asked her how copes, she once told me that she gets emotional distance by asking herself how an actress cast as a victimized heiress who runs and takes sanctuary with the mob would play things…and then she does that." Kate laughed humorlessly. _

"_She said the only thing she actually feels directly is being my mother. I still don't know how genuine that was. She may just have thought that would keep me from cutting ties with her completely. With her, not even I know where the performance ends and reality begins." _

_Kate looked up at him before continuing more briskly, "So I hope the reason you said so much wasn't because she managed to make herself sympathetic to you. Or feel that she's on your side. She has a conscience, but she's also a master at rationalizing things. There's just enough genuine complexity to how she thinks about the world that you can never tell for sure what she really feels or what she'll do. I swear if she had ever actually gone into acting, she'd have as many Oscars as Meryl Streep."_

_Sam had chuckled dryly. "That's probably true. I'm not sure I read her right, but she did seem like recent events have made her reconsider certain things. Is it true that your Dad has terminal cancer, or was she playing me with that?"_

_Kate laughed harshly, "No, it turns out that actually is true. But she hadn't even told me the news yet when she let you in on that little bombshell. Maybe she thought knowing that would have made me even more likely to risk opening up to you? Who knows. She said she just wanted to find the right time to break to me after more urgent things were settled. I don't even know how to feel about it anyway. It doesn't change who he is, but I can't exactly feel nothing about what he's going to go through in the next year or so," Kate shrugged. "I need to go see him, I guess, but I don't really know how to act."_

_Sam found himself hugging Kate. Not that he was the least bit sorry about old man Connolly. But intentionally or not, Kate was even better than her mother at making it impossible to stay too angry with her for long. Not that he forgave her for how she handled everything seven years ago, exactly. He just couldn't ignore the fact that she'd been raked over the coals emotionally almost as badly as he had._

_He gave her a last encouraging squeeze, "You'll figure it out. Look, I'm going to go play some music. I need to tune all of this out for a while. We've settled what we need to, right?"_

"_Yeah," Kate straightened, pulling herself together. "As long as you're definitely going to do __nothing__ that might raise any alarms until your Dad is out. I don't think Mom is too freaked out, so she's not telling anyone but me about your conversation for now. But she's worried. And less than thrilled with me," Kate grimaced._

"_Don't worry. I'll hate it, but I'll wait this out," Sam assured her, mustering up a half-hearted smirk to follow his eye roll. _

* * *

A noise near the security gate brings him back to the present. He sees his father waiting as they open it for him to pass through. Sam hasn't seen him for a couple years, and he's _never_ seen him in actual civilian clothes before.

He feels a flash of irritation, embarrassment, and reluctant gratitude when he notes the perfectly fitting stylish casual clothes. He's sure the outfit came straight from Catherine Connolly's favorite shop because it doesn't look like anything the system would provide for a long-term ex-con's exit. Damnit, he should have thought about clothes himself. He's not sure whether it's more irritating that she couldn't resist one last bit of unsolicited meddling or that she managed to cover something he should have handled. Sam shakes it off and just concentrates on exhaling, releasing the tension from his shoulders, and feeling the relief that at leas this is really happening.

The way his father's face lights up when he sees who's waiting for him makes everything else seem trivial anyway. Although the surprise before the pleasure just reminds Sam that the only real bonding they'd had as adults was when Sam came to him for realistic details about prison life to use for undercover roles. He imagines again how it must have stung for that to have been one of the few things he'd ever taught his son. Jesus, the lump in his throat aches so badly he swears he'll never be able to swallow again.

Other than a generous amount of gray peppered through his hair and some extra wrinkles, staring at his father was like looking in the mirror. He apparently got a fair amount of time inside for exercise too, because even at his age, he's managed to stay almost as muscular as well. Sam had always resented the close physical resemblance. But now he feels nothing but pride and amazement to see his features echoed in a man who after all this time has managed not to have a dead, defeated look in his eyes. To still move with a fair amount of self assurance.

"Sam. I… thanks for coming, son," his father says, stopping awkwardly short of any contact. Sam sees the exact moment he reads in his eyes that his son finally _knows_. Ray sighs with some weird mix of resignation and relief, but his inhibitions seem to melt away a little. He can't quite manage a hug yet, that's still too unfamiliar. But he clasps Sam's shoulder and swallows before managing a soft, "It's OK."

Sam shakes his head, "Dad… I don't think I'll ever be able to make it OK. But, uh…" he clears his throat and shoves his hands into his pockets. "I thought maybe we could start by getting some pistachio ice cream. And then we can do whatever you want to do today. Sarah and her family are driving down tomorrow to spend the weekend, but I thought you and I could have today first. Is that OK?" Sam suddenly wonders if it's stupid to suggest the ice breaker his Dad used with a little kid.

But his father nods and smiles like he's just grateful that Sam even remembers. Which should make him feel even worse, but somehow makes it better. Sam finds himself returning the smile and relaxing a little.

"Let's go then. I think you've spent more than enough time in this place. Would you uh…do you want to drive part way?" Sam asks.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. But I think maybe I'm not quite ready for that just yet. I'll just sit back and take in what's changed," Ray smiles to make sure his son doesn't feel like he said the wrong thing.

"Right, right. OK then. Jump in," Sam gestures to the passenger side.

* * *

Ray had asked Sam if he minded getting the ice cream as cones so they could take them outdoors and walk around Queens Park for a while. Sam understood instantly his desire to be outdoors, and was thankful it was such a perfect spring day. They'd stuck to light topics, and had managed to mostly avoid awkward pauses and even laugh a little.

Sam was surprised at how funny his Dad could be, whether mocking the people walking around talking on cell phones or giving Sam a hard time about how embarrassed he got when he'd caught him eyeing a jogger in a skimpy outfit who was a dead ringer for McNally.

He'd noticed a bit of sharp black humor from him during those tutoring sessions on the ins and outs of prison life prepping him for UC work. But the awfulness that _he_ was also one of those inmates had always sort of ruined it for Sam. This was different. Sam was pretty amazed actually, at how little the warped situation his Dad has been stuck in for the last few decades has scarred him. Then again, maybe having to observe people closely to amuse himself is what makes him such surprisingly good company now.

But Sam also couldn't help noting the way his Dad's eyes followed families with young kids. The look on his face really kind of gutted Sam every time he noticed it. So Sam asked him if he wanted to go visit Mom's grave next. They were going to have to face the heavier subjects eventually. Fortunately, that seemed to be exactly where his Dad wanted to go.

So here they were. Sam had let him have some time alone there first while he swung by Jerry's newer gravesite. Now the two of them were sitting in the grass next to his mother's grave, easing into more emotional subjects. The thing is, Sam doesn't know how he feels about it all, especially the deception. He can't bring himself to ask about it any sort of way that will feel like an accusation. Is he supposed to make his Dad feel guilty or in the wrong on top of everything else he's been through? So he decides to start with something else.

"You know, I wanted to get her out of that facility. I was so close too. After I got through the Academy, I found a house with a widow's cottage out back that I was going to have adapted for her to stay with a home care person. I had to take out a ridiculous balloon mortgage that everyone said was crazy and would land me in bankruptcy, but I didn't care," Sam sighs. "It was too late though. She only hung on for two days after my graduation ceremony. I guess I didn't realize how bad she'd gotten toward the end. She always tried to hide it when I visited. It kind of put me off making plans for a while."

"I know," his Dad says softly. "She didn't want you to do that. So it's probably just as well you only lost the earnest money on that. She didn't want you to settle for the minimum courses and rush into the Police Academy instead of going to university either. But she was so proud of you that there was no way she wasn't going to make it to your graduation ceremony. This is going to sound terrible, but the one thing I'm not that sad I missed was her funeral. I wish I'd been with her when she passed, but both of us always hated funerals."

"Me too," Sam admits. "I've only gone to two, even though you're expected to turn out for cops."

"The one for the friend whose grave you went to visit was the other?" Ray asks.

"Yeah. He was probably my best friend actually. Asked me to be his best man. He died less than a year ago. I uh, didn't handle it so well," Sam shrugs and looks over in the direction Jerry's buried.

"I'm sorry, son," Ray says simply, letting the conversation lapse into silence. When Sam doesn't seem to want to say more, he changes the subject back to family.

"I uh, I didn't know she had MS when I went to the police. I didn't learn about her diagnosis until six months after I was inside. She wasn't symptomatic yet. Maybe the stress brought it on. I wish I'd thought more about possible consequences instead of feeling like I had to _do_ something. Maybe if I'd known she was facing a disease like that, I would have been able to just walk away and find another job instead of going to the police.

I'm sorry things were so hard for all of you after it all went wrong. I wasn't careful enough. I should have known what they were asking me to do was out of my league. I wasn't trained in how to cover my tracks well enough or to know when a detective was screwing up. We were sitting ducks there at the house waiting for him to get protection organized. I should have insisted that you all were moved to a safe house before agreeing to go after more evidence," Ray drops his head, the shame about the way he'd put his family at risk and let them down as raw as ever.

"Dad…. Don't, please. You're the one who suffered the most. _I'm_ sorry. For how I acted the few times I visited after Mom died. I wish I'd known why you agreed to do all that time. I don't know if I could have changed anything, and I know you didn't want me to try. But I could at least have been a better son…"

"It's not too late for that. You're trying now, and I'm still in pretty good shape. I think I might last a while longer," Ray pauses to shoot a half grin at him.

Sam groans, "Oh God, I used a similar joke once to deflect Andy when she wanted to have a serious conversation. Did you used to pull that on Mom? Now I know how annoying it is. I'm doomed, aren't I?" he rolls his eyes.

"Alright, you want to be serious for a minute, Sam, then I'll tell you this. I couldn't ask for a better son You kept our girls going when things were at the worst. You stepped up and took on things no kid should have to. And when circumstances got beyond you, and the system took things out of your hands, you only had a couple minor hiccups before you pulled yourself together and got back on track. That's all I ever wanted. For you to make it through that childhood, do what you could for your mother and sister, and then go on to have your own stable, happy life.

Being able to live to see that was worth taking the deal, and it was worth having you think I had feet of clay. You may not agree with that decision, and it's OK if you're angry with me for lying to you. But please don't put where you are now at risk. That's the one good thing that came of that choice. I don't _want_ payback or even justice if it comes at the price of anyone else in our family putting themselves at risk. I know it probably goes against all your instincts as a cop, but I hope you'll be able to see it that way too."

He watches Sam struggle to unclench his fists, and relax enough to answer him, "You don't have to say anything right now. Just think about it. How about if we go down to the Lake Shore and have a couple beers while we watch the sun set? I hear they fixed up Sugar Beach recently. I think I'd like to see that," Ray gets to his feet and extends a hand to his son," What do you say? You, me, pink umbrellas? You can tell me about this Andy the girl in the park reminded you of. Sounds like she's more than an ex-partner."

Sam doesn't crack a smile, but he takes his hand and gets to his feet. "Yeah, OK." He looks briefly at his Mom's grave and then it finally feels right, so he hugs his Dad. "I'll try," he says hoarsely.

"Good enough," Ray nods in satisfaction. "Besides, I did manage to set up a transaction that cleaned out all but 10% of the money the warden skimmed from Maplehurst. It should have gone through about an hour ago. Two of the best charities helping former inmates reintegrate on the outside are getting generous anonymous donations," he grins at his son's raised brows and gaping mouth.

"What? I meant the make love not war pep talk I just gave you. But I had to find a way to outsmart at least one of the bastards who screwed me. He might have set me up in decent digs in an old servant's cottage on the grounds of his personal quarters, but he kept me in a lot longer than I ever expected. Most of the guys inside are dirt bags, but a few weren't so bad. So I figured I put all the computer hacking I taught myself to use to flip him the bird on the way out and maybe do a little good in the process," Ray casually gives Sam's shoulders a couple pats before sauntering off toward the truck. It felt pretty good to surprise and impress his son.

Sam watches him go with a big dimply grin of his own. His Dad sure seemed to have come along way from the naïve guy who got rolled so badly all those years ago. Who would have guessed he'd have the stones to pull that off right before he got out? This is the kind of Dad who's gonna be fun to have around.

* * *

**AN: **This first bit of bonding was a little intimidating to write. I hope I didn't butcher it too much.


	25. Chapter 25: Bonding

**Author's Note: **I added this chapter because a couple people expressed interest in this conversation. Hope the rest of you enjoy it too. Andy _is_ next, I swear.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 25: Bonding**

"I figured I would put all the computer hacking I taught myself to use to flip him the bird on the way out and maybe do a little good in the process," Ray casually gives Sam's shoulders a couple pats before sauntering off toward the truck. It felt pretty good to surprise and impress his son.

Sam watches him go with a big dimply grin of his own. His Dad sure seemed to have come along way from the naïve guy who got rolled so badly all those years ago. Who would have guessed he'd have the stones to pull that off right before he got out? This is the kind of Dad who's gonna be fun to have around.

* * *

"Cheers," Sam clinks his bottle with his Dad, to toast their first beer together.

"So?" Ray prompts.

"So what?" Sam plays dumb.

"So, what's the story with Andy McNally?"

"Uh, well, it's not exactly in happy ending territory right now," Sam grimaces. "I kind of screwed things up. But, um, I'm not sure how badly yet. She's gone on some undercover assignment as part of a big task force."

"Oh, so you're the one left behind for a change," Ray smirks. "Does Sarah know?"

Sam rolls his eyes. "Yeah, and it gets better. Andy's partnered with the guy who was sort of her breakup buddy after I bailed out on her…and it's being run by the guy she used to be engaged to."

"Oh. Is that actually as bad as it sounds?" Ray asks with a worried frown.

Sam sighs, "I hope not. I mean, there was a time I would have thought taking that particular long-term assignment means she's just moved on. I kind of let that engagement get in my head and screw up my ability to really believe in what we had. But that wasn't the main issue, so I don't know why I even brought that part up. I'm not really worried about either Callaghan or Collins. I don't think they had much to do with her taking the slot, other than maybe her ability to talk her way onto the team, I guess."

"Sounds like things were pretty serious, whether you wanted them to be or not. So why did you break it off? If I'm following things here, you did that before the task force came up, right?"

Sam nods, "Yeah. It was right after Jerry died."

"Ah," Ray nods. "So things got messy trying to date someone you work with, then?"

Sam laughs without humor, "Yeah. You could say that. At the time it seemed way too complicated, and I just got to the point I couldn't handle it anymore. But after Kate came back, I realized I was just overcomplicating everything. Which is pretty ironic because I back when I was training Andy, I used to give her a hard time about over thinking everything."

"You were Andy's training officer? Well, that explains a lot. Easy to have some sparks take hold. Forbidden fruit, working closely together in situations where you know what you're doing and can show off a little without even trying…. But not as easy to turn the corner and transition that into a real relationship you both can live with, huh?" Ray eyes his son to see if he's in the ball park here.

"We… hit a few bumps. Yeah," Sam admits, running a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"But I realized recently that compared to every other relationship in my life, McNally is a walk in the park. It's kind of like you said, like it or not I've been in love with her for a long time now. But now I finally just _know,_ for sure, that I want to figure it out and do everything I can to make this a permanent thing with her. And I think even after everything that happened, I have a decent shot at getting her to give me a second chance. I told her I'd made a mistake and wanted to make it up to her. I didn't exactly do it the right way or say the right things, but I think she was halfway to deciding to at least hear me out before she got called in to start her assignment. At least, I hope I'm not kidding myself about that.

But even if I'm not, I know things get ugly sometimes on undercover assignments. There's always a chance it changed her enough that she really is done with me," Sam shrugs uncomfortably at the thought. It's the first time he's really acknowledged that particular fear to himself, and saying it out loud made it seem a little too real.

"There's only one way to find out. You've just got to give it your best shot. When do you think she'll be back?" Ray asks.

"Hard to say. Could be any day now, or another couple months still. They're being crazy tight with information on this. None of the guys I could normally rely on to give me information will say much more than she's OK, and things are going well," Sam sighs. "It does make me wonder. Something is up about this task force. It's more than just the fact that Andy and I got in trouble for getting together when I was undercover. My guys wouldn't shut me out just because of that."

"So you got yourself into official hot water with this woman already?" Ray asks.

Sam laughs harshly, "Yup, we both got suspended for conduct unbecoming during my last undercover gig. But that wasn't really a big deal. It was mostly just a formality the suits had to do. Except she actually took the no contact part of our suspension seriously. She took off for the boon docks and I didn't hear a peep from her for three months. That was sort of the beginning of our problems.

The thing is that because of my inept handler, not anything we did, I got made and almost killed. That's how it got out that we'd seen each other a couple times when I was under. I didn't tell anyone at the time everything that happened at the farmhouse where the guy I was working took me. She left before I could even decide whether I should tell her, and I guess I took it personally. Which was totally irrational because she didn't know what I was dealing with. Hell, _I _didn't really know. By the time Andy came back, I thought I was over it.

But months later Kate actually figured out that I had a brain injury that caused some disruption to certain thought processes. So that sort of put everything in a different light, I guess." Sam catches the panicked look in his Dad's eyes, and rushes to continue, "Don't worry, I'm fine now. She figured out exactly what it was and worked out a way for me to go on leave under cover of developing a training module. She put together a whole rehab program that got me back on track."

Ray sighs, "Sam, I know we don't have a history of being close. And I know you might not want to talk to me about it yet. But if you're ever ready, I'm here. Andy time."

Sam nods, but can't speak at the moment.

"I do think you need to tell Andy about this when she gets back. Don't just brush it off as ancient history because you feel like the problem is solved. This sort of thing festers. You can't have a successful relationship and hold back big things like that. If she loves you, she'll want to know even at this late date," Ray advises.

"Yeah, I know. Now that I understand better what was going on in my own head, it doesn't seem as impossible to talk about. I still don't know exactly how I'm gonna do it, or how soon I should bring it up. But I will talk to her about it. I want her to understand what it was like, but I just…

I don't want her to think I'm trying to excuse the things I did that were totally out of line. I broke things off really abruptly and didn't really talk to her or give her any explanation for six weeks. That was…. No matter what, I should never have done that to her," Sam says shaking his head. "Sometimes I still can't believe that I did," Sam says with a grimace.

"No one's perfect, Sam. So, you made a few mistakes, and one very big one, with Andy. Half the battle is convincing her that you really get how it must have felt to her, that you know it's going to take a while to rebuild trust, and that you're capable of doing things differently. In my experience, that's usually the most important thing to overcoming a major rupture to a relationship.

But I think she does need to know the context to feel like there's any chance you won't pull the same thing again when the going gets tough. I don't know how much you've told her about some of the other things that have affected you, but…"

"You mean all my childhood baggage?" Sam mocks.

"Family issues, yes. And maybe a little about what happened with Kate. It might help her to know what pushes your buttons, and why you're more gun shy about jumping into things than most people…"

Sam snorts, "Well, considering that _I _didn't even know the straight story myself about most of the big things that have affected my life, you're right. I haven't told Andy much."

"Okay, Okay. I deserved that dig. You don't have to tell me that I'm the root of most of your baggage, if you want to call it that," Ray sighs. "Look, I guess what I'm trying to say is that some of your best qualities are tied up in all of the things you've gone through too. Once someone is in your inner circle… Sam, I don't know anyone who's more loyal or does more for those you love when they really need you.

This break-up with Andy during a crisis is probably the only time in your life that you've ever let anyone down in a major way. It's definitely not a pattern with you. It's a big deal, but you have to cut yourself some slack. Most people have at least one moment in their lives when they're just overwhelmed and aren't there for others."

Sam just grunts skeptically, not sure he believes that, let alone that Andy will see it that way. Or rather, she probably knows that all too well, and sees him as just another in a long line of people who have let her down just when she starts to believe in them.

"Anyway, enough about my love life, or lack thereof. It's going to get dark soon, and I have something I want to show you," Sam says, determined to snap out of the negative thoughts.

* * *

As Sam pulls up in front of the house, Ray asks, "So you do know where it is. I wasn't sure if you had ever come by here."

Sam chuckles, "I hadn't until recently. Let's just say I had an interesting first look."

"Swinging by here was a nice thought. It looks the same," Ray says wistfully.

"The inside has changed a little more," Sam says casually, watching his father closely.

Ray's head snaps around to look at Sam in surprise, "You've seen the inside too?"

"Yup," Sam grins. "We're not just stopping by. Welcome home, Dad."

Ray frowns, confused. "What do you mean?" His eyes widen as Sam pulls out a set of house keys.

"Let's go inside and I'll explain it while I make dinner," Sam suggests.

Ray swallows, still not quite sure what's going on here. "Okay," he finally agrees hoarsely.

Sam puts an arm around his Dad's shoulders as they walk up the steps, "You and Mom were right about this neighborhood. It's one of the hottest areas in the city now."

As the walk inside, Sam watches as his father tears up looking around. Even with the changes, it seems to have thrown him back in time. Sam gives him some space to take it all in, hoping the way he seems to be lost in memories is a good thing. He's been a little nervous about whether this was a good idea, to be honest.

Sam eyes his father closely when he rejoins him in the kitchen after having wandered slowly through the first floor rooms. He seems OK, Sam guesses. He motions to the deed on the island.

Ray searched his eyes for a long time before picking them up. The seller listed is a shell corporation, but he's pretty sure he knows what's going on here.

"Is this Kate's mother's doing?" Ray asks softly.

Sam nods, clearing his throat nervously. "I uh, hope it's OK. I told her it doesn't make up for anything. But…," he sighs. "Dad, I just thought you deserved to get the chance to live here if that's what you want. It should never have been seized in the first place, and you and Mom put a lot into this place."

Ray sets the lease down, and looks around the rooms. He expels a long breath, "Alright. Your Mom would've said no. But I honestly don't care what Catherine Connolly's motives are. I'd like to come back someplace familiar. Mostly familiar anyway," he says with a twitch of his lips. "She sent these clothes too, didn't she?"

Sam winces and nods. "Yeah, I think so. Sorry. I was kind of hoping you wouldn't figure that out."

Ray rolls his eyes and laughs, "It's pretty nice Armani. I knew you didn't pick this stuff, and Maplehurst sure as hell didn't spring for it. It didn't take a genius to figure it out."

Pretty soon they're both laughing for no apparent reason, except to release some tension at the absurdity of the whole thing.

Sam stops laughing long enough to gasp out, "You do look pretty sharp. She may be a borderline psychopath, but she has good taste."

Ray pulls a face, "She's a piece of work, alright. But she does owe me. As long as she doesn't start trying to set me up on dates with ladies from her charity teas, I'm fine."

"Oh, God. Don't joke about that around Kate. She'll probably pass it along, and give her ideas," Sam's laughter trails off though.

He frowns a bit instead, "Wait, what _are_ you going to do about building a social life again? I hadn't really thought about things beyond making sure there was room for Sarah's brood to visit this weekend."

Ray rolls his eyes and snarks, "I'll make a Facebook page," before adding more seriously, "One step at a time, Sam. I need a little while to adjust before I'm ready for much socializing anyway… and I don't need my son to worry about my sex life," he says with a twinkle in his eye. "You're looking at the original Swarek here. I'm much more charming than you, and you've always turned plenty of heads."

Sam wrinkles his nose in mock disgust, "Yeah, OK. Enough over sharing. I didn't mean to bring up your hypothetical sex life," for a second Sam feels bad about that crack because, well, it _has_ been a long time since his mother was in good enough health for conjugal visits.

But his Dad just says, "Whatever, wiseass. Are you gonna actually cook me some dinner or what?"

"I'm on it. There's beer and wine in the fridge. Why don't you look around the rest of the house. I bought basic groceries and personal care stuff, but make a list and I'll take you to the store to pick up whatever else you need after dinner."


	26. Chapter 26: Road Trip

**Author's Note: **Glad most people who reviewed seem to have liked the way I wrote Sam's dad. I decided to make him pretty resilient and with a bit of Swarek swagger still in him even after all he's been through, instead of bitter, broken, or pathetic. No doubt he had some rough times adjusting ahead of him, but this is Sam's story. So we're going to take a small time jump rather than dwelling on that.

As always, thanks to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this so far. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 26: Road Trip**

"Whatever, wiseass. Are you gonna actually cook me some dinner or what?"

"I'm on it, Dad. There's beer and wine in the fridge. Why don't you look around the rest of the house. I bought basic groceries and personal care stuff, but make a list and I'll take you to the store to pick up whatever else you need after dinner."

* * *

*One month later*

Sam shifts restlessly in his seat and wonders for the thousandth time why whoever is in charge of this big case stashed their key witness so freaking far away. Six hours out from the outskirts of Toronto? Really? Any added security is going to be undermined by the toll on their alertness. And who was this mystery person who supposedly requested that he and Peck take this gem of a duty? If he didn't know Frank well enough to see his was being straight with him, he would have sworn he was full of it about that.

He'd thought riding with McNally to Sudbury when he was still pissed off with her was bad. But Peck had decided to use the time to air all her thoughts on the Collins/McNally abandonment. Something circumstances had prevented ever since the two of them had been left cooling their heels over tequila shots at the Penny. By the time they neared the place, Sam had reached his limit of hearing her snark and the way she picked at him and seemed to take it personally that he wasn't as pissed off about it as she still was. Like it was some sort of additional betrayal that he had no interest in closing ranks with her in the Left Behind Brigade.

"_Come on, Swarek. I'm as glad as anyone that you're not a wreck like you were the first month after they left. But are you really just going to give her a pass for leaving the way she did?" Gail finally threw out as her last bit of venting._

"_I didn't say that. Not that you've been listening as you've taken advantage of a captive audience all day. But I'm just saying that that's the way major UC gigs work, and things weren't exactly in a place between us this time where I could expect her to break the rules. _

_And what are you really most upset at Collins for anyway? That he left or that you missed him? You said yourself that night that you had just sprung your Europe plans on him. You have to have realistic expectations of people. You want some advice from me? Decide whether you still want to be with him or not. Don't do halfway anymore. That's the thing that doesn't work." _

_Gail snorts and gives him a playful punch on the arm, "Since when does Sam Swarek actually give good relationship advice? You're getting soft." _

But a smile had broken through the sulky silence she lapsed into for the last half hour of the drive. Sam even cracked a half grin of his own. But he was still relieved that the witness turned out to be just chatty enough to provide a buffer without annoying the hell out of him on the drive back.

* * *

After they'd made the one stop he allowed halfway back, Sam decided to try to get out of the guy what the case was all about, and why the two guys assigned to protect him couldn't have just driven him to Toronto to give his sworn deposition before being transferred into more permanent Witness Protection arrangements between now and the start of the trial. Everything about how this was being handled seemed a little off and unusual, and questions had been slowly forming in his mind ever since the left the safe house.

Sam had Peck drive the rest of the way so he could get a good look at the guy's face while he tried to get a fix on what this was all about. The thing was, as evasive as the guy had been, by the time they were nearing the outskirts of Toronto, he'd still given enough away that Sam was now pretty sure he's connected to Project Dakota, probably a key part of providing the initial probable cause for setting up the whole thing in the first place, including most of the wiretaps and other surveillance involved.

And that's what's led to all the current thoughts spinning around his head. If they were bringing this guy in today to lock down his pre-trial testimony before shipping him out to parts unknown with the Witness Protection pros taking over control, the whole operation must be coming to a head. Soon. Maybe even tonight.

Twice he's been let down when takedowns mustering extra personnel turned out to be unconnected to Project Dakota. But this just feels like the reason Frank and whoever requested them (Luke?) wanted them out of town for the day. Frank's been twitchy for the past week. He wouldn't come out and admit it, but Sam's pretty sure the 15th was slotted to be a part of the final big bust when the time came.

He pulls out his cell to call Oliver and see if he's right. No answer. That probably means it's going down right now and all the backup teams have gone silent. Sam's anxiety spikes. He has no idea whether Andy and Nick will even be anywhere near the final takedown. But they might be. And he was stuck here cooling his heels babysitting a witness, about as far from the action as they could get him.

No matter how important this guy is to getting key evidence admitted in court, Sam's definitely going to give Frank an earful about that. The way he's been completely shut out of this was big time overkill. He grits his teeth and resists the urge to slam a fist against the car door. Even so, Peck shoots him a curious glance, picking up on his change in mood. Sam decides not to fill her in on his suspicions til they drop off their charge and make it back to the barn. He does make a crack about her driving like a grandmother to try to move things along a little faster though.

* * *

Sam's sure he's paced a hole in the floor by now, and Peck has grown so pale she's practically transparent. Most of her earlier anger seems to have been replaced by worry almost as great as his own. Which doesn't help. As soon as he'd walked in the door, he knew he was right.

The place was practically deserted, and the bare number of those around to keep things going were clammed up tight. At least all the best people were out working this. Except him. And Peck. That just makes him want to punch something all over again. So he actually decides to go work the heavy bag over in the workout room for a few minutes after Oliver's phone clicks over to voicemail. _Again._

When he's finally blown off enough steam to keep from completely jumping out of his skin, he tries Oliver again. This time he finally gets through.

"What happened? Was she there? Is she OK?" Sam fires off in quick succession.

"Calm down, Sammy. She's fine. Everything went down like clockwork, and she wasn't even anywhere near this bust anyway. She and Collins wrapped things up and were pulled out this morning. Luke's number two guy took over the debrief hours ago. The two of them will probably be back at the 15th within the hour. If you're there, just hang tight, and you'll be the first person to meet her. It's going to take us a while to wrap things up here. I'll let her tell you the details, but you're going to impressed by what they pulled off," Oliver's voice has this weird mix of soothing reassurance and adrenaline buzz going on here. But Sam's so relieved, he can hardly follow what he's saying. His legs give out, and he sinks down onto the weight bench he'd been pacing around before mumbling some sort of response when Oliver says he has to hang up and get back to things.

He finally rouses himself to go take a quick shower and change into something less rumpled, stopping only to give Peck a couple words of reassurance first. Then he calls his dad and asks him to swing by, even though it's past 11 p.m. now. Now that he knows she's safe, a good mix of excitement mixed with butterflies takes over from the gnawing fear. He can't keep the grin off his face, and he actually finds himself whistling as he strips down and heads into the shower. Good thing no one's around or Peck wouldn't be the only one thinking he's gone soft.

* * *

**AN: **Just a little tease of a bridge chapter while I finish writing the long awaited McSwarek reunion. Which will be soon, I hope.


	27. Chapter 27: Mulligan

**Author's Note: **….aaaand here it is. The long-awaited McSwarek reunion.

As always, thanks so much to those who have reviewed/followed/favorited this. Honest feedback means a lot!

**Chapter 27: Mulligan**

Now that he knows she's safe, a good mix of excitement and butterflies takes over from the gnawing fear. He can't keep the grin off his face, and he actually finds himself whistling as he strips down and heads into the shower. Good thing no one's around or Peck wouldn't be the only one thinking he's gone soft.

* * *

Andy and Nick burst through the front door on a wave of energy after a long day of sitting through exhaustive and repetitive debriefing interviews.

"When do you think everyone will be back?" Nick asks, eyes sweeping the room.

McNally catches the way his posture stiffens and follows his gaze to where Sam and Gail are standing instead of answering.

Sam's breath catches as he drinks in the sight of her. She looks thin, with pronounced dark circles and an underlying paleness. But her cheeks are flushed with excitement to match the brightness in her eyes. She's clearly riding a strong adrenaline high. Sam's last two UC assignments might have been cut short, but he's been through enough victories to remember the feeling well.

He watches as her eyes widen and fill with nervousness as she catches sight of him. She stops frozen in her tracks as well. Finally her mouth twitches up on one side. She looks at him exactly the way she had when she'd come back the last time and he'd asked how they should start. So, not unaffected at least. That's good, right?

Then she realizes he's holding a sign, and focuses on reading it. This time it says "I LOVE YOU" instead of "DUMMY."

(Yeah, Peck had given him a _lot_ of crap about that, even after he told her the inside story. She even said he was a bigger sap than Diaz, but he didn't care. He wasn't about to risk starting with a joke this time, or that she'd just brush past him before he can say anything at all, for that matter)

Her posture relaxes when it sinks in that he's not giving her the cold shoulder, and she manages a real, if slightly shaky, smile as she walks closer.

"Hey," she says softly.

"Hey," Sam manages to say back, ditching the sign.

She scuffs a foot on the floor nervously, takes a deep breath and decides to lead with the case. It's probably a mistake now just like it was a mistake to lead with apologies about Dale when she really wanted to comfort him about Jerry. But she can't help herself.

She looks up and meets his eyes again, rocking up onto her toes to blurt out with hopeful excitement, "We got your white whale, Sam." She can't repress the proud grin accompanying the news either.

Sam just stares at her blankly. "My…" The Connolly syndicate is the white whale that's been preoccupying him for weeks, but McNally would have no way of knowing that, so he's not following her. Then his eyes widen and he chokes out, "Wait, you mean Anton Hill? Andy…."

She nods enthusiastically, before catching the dawning worry and anger in his expression and tone. She raises a calming hand, "Wait, wait. Before you get mad, Nick and I weren't doing anything directly connected to him, I swear. We were working a source in the organization that was trying to become his new heroin supplier. An anonymous tip about the possible new alliance led the higher ups to set up the task force to try to take down both organizations by getting the newcomers first and then trying to flip them to rat out Anton too."

"Anonymous tip, huh?" Sam rolls his eyes.

"What, you think you know who it was?" Andy asks. "No one could figure that out."

"Oh, I might have a couple ideas," Sam says dryly, not elaborating. He's pretty sure this smacks of a classic Catherine Connolly move to belatedly get full vengeance for Sarah. But there must be some other reason they decided Anton Hill was dispensable. Most likely this new organization had plans to eventually take over instead of just supplying him.

Andy decides to let it pass for now, "Anyway, I almost backed out when I was briefed on who Dakota was after, but Luke said our handler was someone you've worked with successfully. Someone with lots of experience running undercover ops, that he knew you trusted more than anyone. So once I thought it through, I really wanted to do it. I wanted to finally make up for blowing your cover. I know you don't blame me for that anymore, but I do. I needed to do it for me. So that I could stop feeling like a screw up, stop being defensive about my abilities. Can you understand that?"

When Sam nods, she continues, "I decided to do it if I was sure I'd never run into anyone on Anton's crew who might recognize me. So…" she takes a deep, fortifying breath, "I'm sorry, Sam. But I had to tell my handler about Emily and having run into Hill before in uniform with you. I figured he had to be the one who taught you not to card CIs in the first place. I didn't think it was selling you out, and he said he wouldn't tell Luke unless some sort of conflict about whether Nick and I were at risk came up. Which it didn't," she added, eyes wide. "Was I… did I have your back enough?" she asks, nervously before biting her bottom lip and waiting for him to say something.

Sam expels a breath, looking down at his feet as he tries to take it all in, keep his cool and keep his professional hat on for a minute. He looks up and asks, "Was it Tom Bradley running you two?" When she nods, he continues, "OK. Yeah, he's solid. Probably the best on the force, in fact. He's always had my back, and he would never have let you go under if he thought there was any chance you'd end up at a meet with Anton or any of his guys. So, you were OK trusting him."

God, it was still so risky. Not even Tom can think of all the ways things could suddenly go wrong. Sam could have easily lost her. He's not sure whether he's glad he didn't know what she was up to, or pissed that he couldn't intervene and pull her out before Tom let her take this on. Since it's done, he manages for now to just say, "But you know you didn't have anything to prove to me, right?"

Andy shrugs, but looks pleased. "I guess. But like I said, _I _needed to fix it for me, so that I could finally leave it behind me. Anyway, Tom told me not to contact you or let you know anything about what I was doing. I thought he was right that it would probably make you worry too much. Otherwise I would have broken the rules this time. I… I regretted leaving things the way they were almost as soon as I was gone. I just…." she blows a breath up in the direction of her bangs. "I was too hurt and angry at the time to let things go and try again, I guess," she shrugs.

"And now?" he asks softly. "Because I was sort of wondering, McNally, if you might still be willing to give me a mulligan?" he extends a hand toward her the same way she had in that warm wet parking lot after their first full shift together. He's pretty sure he's looking at her the same way he had that night too.

Andy sucks in a breath, and her eyes fly wide as she recognizes her code word. She searches his eyes to make sure he means what she thinks he does, before taking his hand and drifting one step closer, giggling a little, "Well, it took you long enough to ask."

Sam winces, and acknowledges, "I know. I uh, I didn't hear your message until after you left. But in my defense, I woke up every day since I heard it wanting to ask the right question. It just took _you_ a while to get back," he gives her a sad grin.

She ducks her head in contrition. "Yeah, I know. If it makes a difference, I missed you every single day this time too. Are you sure you're not mad again?" she asks, searching his eyes.

"No," he shakes his head. ""Well, maybe I was at first. But I get why you did it. And… Maybe we needed some time apart to figure a few things out," he shrugs. "A lot happened while you were away. I'm sure that's true for you too. And I want to talk, really talk. About all of it. About all the things we just swept under the rug before," he rubs his thumb over her knuckles, trying for just enough physical contact to persuade her to say yes.

"OK. Good. I think I'm ready for that too," she says softly with a nod.

Sam flashes her a relieved smile. "Good. But listen. I meant everything I said before you left. I didn't get the timing or the content of that speech right, and I want to do this right this time. I don't want it to be rushed or in our workplace with people we work with likely to walk in any minute. You're still on an adrenaline rush, but you're gonna crash soon. So… How about you celebrate tonight with the roo-, with your friends. Then get a good night's rest tonight. I'd like to make you dinner at my place tomorrow night. We can talk and try to figure out where things stand then. Sound OK?"

"Yeah," she says around a relieved breath. "Yeah, I'd like that," she smiles at him.

Sam gives her a big dimply grin back, "OK then," he pulls gently on the hand he was still holding. "While we wait for everyone to come back, there's someone I'd like you to meet," he lets go of her hand as she's propelled forward, and places a hand in the small of her back as they head back toward the break room.

He clears his throat as they walk in the door, and his dad gets to his feet.

Andy's eyes saucer wide open, darting between the two of them.

Sam just nods to silently confirm her guess.

Andy's expression morphs from shock into an impish grin. She shoots a flirty look under her lashes at Ray before stepping forward with her hand extended. "Hmm, Sam never told me he knows George Clooney," she teases.

Sam shoots a worried look at Ray, not sure he'll get the reference, but Ray waves him off impatiently behind his back as he throws back his head on an appreciative laugh, "You must be Andy," he takes her hand and shoots Sam a glance. "You didn't tell me what a charming flirt she is."

Sam rolls his eyes. "She only flirts that way with harmless old guys like you."

"Ha!" Ray barks in mock offense.

"Oh, my mistake. Of course, you must be his brother," Andy continues her teasing flattery, seeing that Sam is half pleased, half miffed.

"Oh, I like this girl," Ray says, shooting a smug look at his son.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Sam rolls his eyes. "Andy, this is my father. Dad, this is Andy McNally," Sam finally manages to make the introductions.

"It's a true pleasure to meet you, Andy McNally. One thing my son didn't leave out is how beautiful your smile is," he pauses to look over at Sam and enjoy the blush creeping over his son's cheeks.

Andy raises a brow, "Oh really?" she teases before breaking into a wider, pleased smile. "Well, I'm very happy to finally meet you too."

Sam clears his throat, "Yeah, yeah. If you're done trying to show me up here, wasn't there something you wanted to ask Andy, Dad?" Sam prompts.

"Buzz kill," Ray shoots him a mock glare. "You fall for a beautiful woman, you gotta get used to men, even geezers like me, trying to make her smile." He turns back to Andy, "But he's right, I did have something to ask. I know the two of you have a lot to catch up with tomorrow. But assuming my son doesn't screw that up, I would be honored if you would come along with him to have dinner at my house Friday night."

Sam snorts, "Thanks for the vote of confidence there, Dad," but he smiles anyway at how pleased Andy seems about the whole situation. He's relieved that this wasn't too much to spring on her already.

And Andy does look really touched actually. She's even tearing up a bit when she glances at Sam before turning back to answer Ray, "I'd love that. Thank you for the invitation. Can I bring anything?"

"No, no. Just yourself. And promise to hear this one out. He may have a couple rough edges, but his heart is in the right place," Ray smiles at her, giving her hand a last pat before letting it go.

"Alright, you've had enough fun at my expense. Time to go, Dad. We'll see you on Friday," he shoots a pointed look at his dad, but he mouths a thank you his way.

That seems to jolt Andy, "Oh my gosh. It's so late. Did you wait around just to meet me? That's… Thank you!" she launches herself first at Ray then at Sam, giving them each a short, fierce hug. "I.. Thank you for not giving up on me yet," she says swiping at stray tear.

Sam swallows a lump in his throat, "Never," he says softly. "It took me a little while, but I'm not giving up without a fight this time."

Andy just nods, too choked up to speak. Sam can see that part of the reason she's getting emotional is that the adrenaline is starting to wear off. He hears the members of the take down team starting to pour in from the Sally port anyway. It sounds like chaos in booking too.

"Listen, are you sure you're up to celebrating tonight? I can take you home if you're tired and want to wait for all of that…."

But Andy straightens and seems to catch a bit of a second wind. "Thanks. Really. But it's been so long… I think I want to go along to the Penny at least for a while if Traci and the rest can wrap up before too long."

"OK. Dad, why don't you head out, and I'll keep Andy company until her friends are ready to go. Thanks for coming by," he adds, clapping Ray on the shoulder.

"My pleasure. I didn't want to wait any longer to finally meet your girl. Andy, I look forward to seeing you again on Friday. Congratulations on your taskforce going well. We're both very relieved you're back safe and sound," he gives her shoulder a squeeze.

"Me too," And smiles back at him. "I'll see you Friday. Thanks again for coming by to invite me."

Andy looks at Sam with her heart in her eyes. She's still a little wary, but tonight went better than she ever dreamed it would. It was a good start at least. "You've changed," she say softly. "It means a lot that you wanted me to meet him. No matter how much I missed you and wanted to believe you were finally ready for…" she huffs a breath. "I don't think I could take it again if I thought you were still going to stay closed off."

Sam nods, "I know. And I _am_ ready. But you have to meet me halfway. I wasn't the only one who picked and chose which sensitive topics I was willing to share and be open about, you know."

Andy nods, "Yeah, I know. I _never_ thought it was all your fault that things didn't turn out exactly the way we hoped. Even after you broke it off. But it nearly broke me when you shut me out completely," she blinked away the tears before she started losing it completely.

"I'm sorry," Sam croaks out, pulling her into a hug. "I'll never do that again. I promise," he said firmly, kissing the top of her head.

"OK," she whispers. "But you better not break that promise, or I swear I'll kick your ass."

Sam chuckles, "Noted." He pulls back and looks her in the eye, "I won't let you down, Andy."

Before she can reply, Dov and Chris burst into the room, practically bouncing off the walls with the excitement of the big bust.

"Anton effing Hill! Rock 'n roll, McNally!" Dov hi fives her before pulling her into a bear hug.

"Yeah, the dealers you busted totally came through. You should have seen Anton Hill's face when he figured out they sold him out! It was so cool!" Chris chimes in. "You're big time now, Andy," he adds, bringing her in for his own hug.

"Even the Ice Queen was impressed. She might even stop yelling at Nick enough for him to get lucky tonight. Nothing gets Gail worked up like someone making a big bust," Dov waggles his brows.

"Hey, man. C'mon. That's not cool," Chris objects.

"Well, it's true. You know it is," Dov defends.

"Yeah, it kind of is," Chris admits. "But still…"

"Fine, fine. I won't say more about it. So, Andy, you ready to celebrate? The hero's par-tay is on for you guys at the Penny tonight," Dov enthuses.

"Umm, yeah," she laughs. "Can you just give me a minute?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry Swarek," Dov says.

"Yeah, sorry man. So we'll wait out front?" Chris asks.

Andy nods, then turns to Sam. "Sam, I…. I just want to say that it wouldn't have meant much if I came back and things were really over with us. So, thank you for waiting. I promise I'll try harder this time too."

"OK. Go have fun," he nods toward the door. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," She nods back. "First day of the rest of _our_ lives," she smiles, before heading after the boys, turning back for one last long look before walking through the door.

* * *

**AN: **So, there you have it. I finally delivered the happy ending. Before the final crush of the Holiday Season too.

Hope it was worth the wait. Thanks for coming along with me on this made up Swarek journey of self discovery. I can't wait to see what the pros come up with for him in season 4.

For those who still want more about how they do the hard work of rebuilding things, I'd recommend some other excellent fics, like rookieD's 8 Days of Boo/House of Boo or snapple79's Wooing of stories. I'm sure there's several more good ones I haven't gotten a chance to read yet too. (There is some chance I'll come back and add an epilogue to this. But I'm not promising anything at this point.)


End file.
